The USA could deny pregnant women, including those from South Africa, tourist visas if it believes that they are travelling to America to give birth.
A new U.S. State Department rule that aims to clamp down on ‘birth tourism’ went into effect on Friday and instructs consular officers to deny a B nonimmigrant visa to anyone believed to be travelling to the country with the primary purpose of giving birth there and securing a US citizenship for their child.
According to the Sae Department’s website, ‘The Department does not believe that visiting the United States for the primary purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for a child, by giving birth in the United States—an activity commonly referred to as “birth tourism”—is a legitimate activity for pleasure or of a recreational nature’.
A report by Associated Press last year states that there has been an increase in Russian women travelling to the US to have their babies, as well as a number of Chinese and Nigerian nationals doing the same.
Also read: Woman forced to take pregnancy test to board flight
The new rule does not apply to travellers from Canada, Bermuda or the 39 nations that are part of a visa waiver system – including Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Greece and Austria – which allows travellers 90 visa-free entries into the US.
Earlier this year, a woman travelling from Hong Kong to the Pacific Ocean island Saipan, belonging to the USA, was asked to take a pregnancy test before being allowed onto a Hong Kong airways flight.
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