Los Angeles mulls possible ban on maternity hotels

Los Angeles County is seeking to stamp out “maternity hotels” -- apartments divided into small rooms for foreign women who travel to the United States to give birth in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for their children.

To eliminate these facilities, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe sought to strengthen the regulations on the boarding houses, a hotbed for “birth tourism.” The motion expected to be approved next week.

Knabe said the hotels offer places to pregnant women who want their children to obtain dual citizenship while entering the country on a visitor’s visa.

As the U.S. Constitution grants citizenship to any child born in its territory, some Korean women seek to give birth in the U.S. to exempt their sons from mandatory military duty. In Korea, men who hold foreign citizenship do not have to fulfill the 21-month service unless they volunteer for the job.

The move to ban the hotels followed a residents’ protest against a facility operating in their neighborhood. Neighbors raised safety and sanitation concerns, such as sewage spills from an overloaded septic system. The county received 60 complaints about the same problem in December, according to a report by the Planning Department submitted to the Board of Supervisors.

“The conditions inside some of these houses are putting the lives of the mothers and babies at risk, and we must do what we can to protect them and stop this illegal activity,” Knabe said.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the majority of the pregnant women are from Asia, especially Korean and Chinese mothers who stay at the maternity hotels in Asian-populated areas. They spend around $20,000 for the birth trip.

Though such a practice does not violate federal immigration law, the local government is allowed to regulate the hotels for zoning or building code violations.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)