Even as the United States wrangles over wave after wave of illegal immigrants coming from Latin America, another front on the immigration quagmire has quietly opened up with China. But on much smaller feet.

There is a growing trend among expectant Chinese mothers to travel to American territories, on a legal visa, to give birth so their children will be granted US citizenship. The 14th Amendment of the United States' constitution stipulates that a child born within American jurisdiction — a state, territory, Army base, embassy, or consulate — is an automatic citizen.

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A legitimate cottage industry in China, tour operators now have reciprocity with low-profile "maternity hotels" all over the American Pacific. California has long been the destination of choice, but just this year, a maternity industry was discovered on Saipan, the largest of the US-controlled Northern Mariana islands. Saipan, north of Guam, is just a four-hour flight from the Chinese mainland. 

The reasons for having a so-called "anchor babies" are numerous and complex. Some Chinese families simply want to circumvent China's one-child policy. Others want to ensure their child will be able to study in the US and not fight through the regulatory wilds a Chinese citizen would face. Still others want the promise of US government protection.

Some families, critics say, are thinking in the long-term. Upon reaching the age of 21, a US citizen can petition immigration authorities for his or her family, whatever their citizenship, for lawful United States residency.

The practice has drawn sharp protests from local American officials.

Northern Marinanas Governor Eloy S. Inos, in a 2013 letter to the US Department of Homeland Security, recommended that women travelling to the US Commonwealth territory to have babies should be denied entry. 

Marinanas journalist Tammy Doty told Radio Australia that statistics show more Chinese babies, 350, were born in the Northern Marianas in 2012 than babies from any other ethnic group. Across the United States, at least 10,000 Chinese anchor babies were born in the same year.

Birth tourism, which can cost thousands of dollars for the parents, is not illegal in the United States. However several at state and national levels say the loophole in the law in being routinely exploited. Bowing to public outrage, authorities closed several California maternity hotels last year. 

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