American citizenship as a gift to a newborn: why do Russians go to give birth in the USA

US President Donald Trump is going to cancel the rule under which all children born in the country are given American citizenship. If this happens, Russians will no longer be able to “gift” their newborn child US citizenship simply by “right of soil.”

Фото: Depositphotos

Edition with the BBC figured out why Russians go to give birth in the United States.

Why does a Russian child need American citizenship

Visa-free entry (or visa on arrival) to 175 countries is available to US citizens. Studying in the US for citizens is much cheaper than for foreigners.

“This is such an option,” says Peter (not his real name), the father of a five-year-old American citizen. True, for now, American citizenship is rather a hassle for Peter: when the child grows up, the passport will need to be changed to a new one, and besides, according to current Russian laws, people with dual citizenship need to register with the migration service.

“Now is an unstable time, and it would be better if we give birth in the States and give the child the opportunity to choose where to live, depending on where in 20 years it will be better: in Russia or in the USA,” says Lyudmila (name changed), a year and a half ago born in New York.

In addition, Russians are attracted to high-quality medicine abroad: Lyudmila was very afraid of stories about Russian maternity hospitals, which said that “they press on their stomachs with their elbows and call women in labor.”

Births in the United States are popular among wealthy Russians. In the US, Christina Orbakaite, Laysan Utyasheva, Olga Shelest, Anna Sedokova, singer Glukoza and many others gave birth.

American citizenship also has a noticeable drawback: from the age of 18, every citizen is required to file a tax return annually, and if his income exceeds a certain amount, then pay income tax to the US treasury - and it does not matter in which country he lives and receives a salary. But many parents simply don’t think about this in advance.

“The husband intends to send his daughter to higher education in the States. And there the likelihood of her returning to her Russian employer is low,” says Tatyana.

She also went to the United States to give birth, and the situation with taxes, it is not very worried. She admits that she and her husband had themselves served several times to draw a green card that allows them to move to the United States.

Is it difficult to organize such childbirth

To obtain a visa for childbirth, Russian women obtain invitations from a specific hospital or doctor they have chosen. Based on this paper, the consulate issues a B1/B2 medical visa - however, it is also a tourist visa, so now you can enter as a tourist and give birth in the United States without notifying the consulate of your intentions.

One of the popular destinations among Russians is Miami: it is the cheapest place to organize childbirth. Russians also travel to Los Angeles, and less often to New York. You can find Russian-speaking doctors everywhere. A woman in labor has to spend from 3 to 6 months in the United States: it is recommended to arrive two months before giving birth, and documents for the newborn child will have to be processed for about 2 more months. This is a birth certificate, a social security number, an American passport - and a Russian foreign passport too.

“The fastest way is to get American documents. While still in the maternity hospital, they gave me a bunch of questionnaires, and a week later they sent everything by mail,” says Lyudmila. — And getting a Russian passport takes 3-4 weeks. There are long queues at our consulate, everything is confused.”

You cannot return to your homeland with your child without Russian documents—the baby will need a Russian visa. Lyudmila and her husband barely fit into their stay in the United States - the visa allowed them to live there for six months, and at the Russian consulate the process with the passport was delayed.

Medicine in the USA

“The hospital is at the highest level, from a minute of registration before admission to discharge,” says Tatyana, who gave birth to her daughter in Miami in the summer of 2017. — The birth takes place in the ward in which he was admitted, no operating lights or gurneys. Then they transfer to the postpartum room. This is a hotel room, but with a medical bed. There's a TV, a sofa for dad, chairs and a table behind a curtain. Bathroom in the room. The corridors of the hospital are decorated with wood, the yellow-orange walls - nothing gives away the hospital we are used to.”

During the fights, Tatiana was given ice lolly so that she would like to drink less and not get sick from the water she had drunk.

Russian Katerina Komarova lived with her husband in the United States when she became pregnant. She used the usual medical insurance, which was issued before pregnancy, not even thinking that it will give birth to it. She didn’t pick up any special doctors, she went to a regular city hospital. The hospital does not look perfect, she says, they fed it very badly there, but she liked the medicine in the USA.

“Both my mother and my husband were in my room. They were not forced to put on shoe covers, they were not asked to leave,” Katerina said. “My husband and I stayed in the ward overnight, he slept in a chair next to us. At 10 am the doctor came and said that I was ready, and they did not turn off the epidural anesthesia during labor, as they do in Russia, so I was under painkillers throughout the entire process and gave birth calmly.”

How much is it

Tatyana paid the doctor $5, $000 for anesthesia during labor, and $1 for the ward and other hospital services. To this is added the cost of housing, air tickets, children's things, and so on: for example, Peter spent a total of about 250 thousand dollars on his trip to the USA.

There are intermediary firms that help organize a trip, get a visa, find accommodation and doctors: in one of them the cost of a package (doctor, childbirth, translators during childbirth, paperwork) is about 13 thousand dollars. Another company only for maintenance and assistance with documents takes thousands of dollars from 7, hospital services do not include this amount. However, the Russians who gave birth in the United States say that the procedure is not so complicated and it is quite possible to cope with it yourself.

Now it all stops?

"Right of Soil" is governed by the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, but Donald Trump is confident that you can cancel this rule only by presidential decree, not me a constitution and not asking consent from congressmen. According to him, the White House is already working on the abolition of the assignment of citizenship by birthright.

There is no clear answer to the question of whether Trump can abolish “soil law.” Experts, interviewed the US edition of Vox, agree that the White House can somehow change the interpretation of the 14 amendment, including through the Supreme Court, which is now controlled by conservative judges. How it all happens in reality, is still unknown.

According to counting The American Center for Immigration Studies, in the US, 36 is born annually to thousands of foreign children. There are no official statistics on this.

Read also on ForumDaily:

How we flew to give birth in Hollywood, and how much it costs

An immigrant from Kazakhstan gave birth in the United States at home and now cannot receive documents for a child

From Poor to Rich: How Russians Live in Miami

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