Surely you have heard that the Chinese government mandates that every married couple have just one child each.  But what do you do if you are a Chinese couple that wants more than one child?  Welcome "birth tourism"!!

In a recent story on redalert.com they site reports that indicate indicate that wealthy Chinese are the next group cashing in on what is known as "birth tourism" – a phenomenon under which wealthy foreigners book luxury vacations in the United States so their babies born here can gain U.S. citizenship as "birthright citizens" under a generous interpretation of the 14th Amendment.  Meanwhile, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, has announced plans to introduce new legislation into Congress in 2011 to end the birth-citizenship phenomenon.

On July 18, 2010, in an article titled "For many pregnant Chinese, a U.S. passport for a baby remains a powerful lure," Washington Post writer Keith B. Richburg ignited a firestorm.  Richburg reported on Robert Zhou and Daisy Chao, a husband and wife from Taiwan who now live in Shanghai and run a consultancy designed to help wealthy Chinese mothers travel to the United States to give birth.

"The couple's service, outlined in a PowerPoint presentation, includes connecting the expectant mothers with one of three Chinese-owned 'baby care centers' in California," Richburg wrote. "For the $14,750 basic fee, Zhou and Chao will arrange for a three-month stay in a center – two months before the birth and a month after. A room with cable TV and a wireless Internet connection, plus three meals, starts at $35 a day. The doctors and staff all speak Chinese. There are shopping and sightseeing trips."

"For lots of Chinese people now, $15,000 is very affordable," Zhou told NPR. "And it's still at least four times more expensive for a foreign student to study at an American university than it is for an American student. With a U.S. passport, there are no barriers for study or for work."

Zhou told NPR that his firm has helped as many as 600 mothers give birth in the U.S. in the past five years, and that some Chinese mothers take advantage of birth tourism in the U.S. to avoid China's strict one-child law, which evidently does not apply if a child is born to Chinese outside China.

So the inscription on the Statue Of Liberty should now read "Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and your pregnant women!"  Think we should close this loophole?  Can we close it?