A snorkeler enjoys the waters of the CNMI. Photo: MVA
A US congressman has written to the Department of Homeland Security to "rescind" a Biden administration policy that allows visa-free travel for Chinese nationals to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Wisconsin representative Tom Tiffany wants the DHS to put a stop to the Guam-Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Visa Waiver Program that allows Chinese tourists to enter the CNMI and Guam without the need to apply for a US visa.
In a letter to DHS secretary Kristi Noem, Tiffany requested that, "you take steps to rescind a recent Biden administration rule, and any other DHS policy, that allows visa-free travel for Chinese nationals to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands."
He also also recalled a 2020 letter he wrote to DHS on the same issue.
"I wrote to one of your predecessors asking that the administration immediately end the systemic abuse of parole authority that was used to permit nationals of Communist China to enter the CNMI outside of normal visa rules," he said in the letter, dated 12 February.
"Whether through a new territorial waiver or the widespread use of parole, visa-free travel to the US territories for nationals of Communist China breeds national security, public safety, and immigration fraud concerns."
Tiffany said that, in 2009, the Obama administration began the misguided and illegal "categorical" parole program for Chinese nationals to travel to CNMI.
"As a result, citizens of the People's Republic of China were able to sidestep the legal requirement that they first obtain a tourist visa before entering the CNMI.
"Not surprisingly, the volume of entries by Chinese nationals skyrocketed-as did a troubling rise in 'birth tourism,'" Tiffany wrote to Noem.
He said this led to births to foreign visitors to the CNMI jumping from less than 10 in 2009 to almost 600 in 2018.
"In fact, the practice of foreign nationals giving birth [on] Saipan became so widespread that such births exceeded the number of births to legal US residents there in recent years.
"Even worse, the resulting U.S. citizen children are then able to petition for green cards for their entire family in the future," Tiffany wrote.
Wisconsin rep Tom Tiffany with NMI Delegate Kimberly King-Hinds. Photo: Supplied
CNMI Delegate Kimberly King-Hinds, a Republican like Tiffany, wrote on social media prior to Tiffany's letter to Noem that she talked to Tiffany last week and discussed the many similarities and unique challenges faced by rural mainland areas and places like the CNMI.
She said they had a productive conversation in regard to combatting Chinese birth tourism and the importance of the CNMI to America's national security.
In a news conference last month attended by two other House members, Tiffany also raised the issue of birth right citizenship loophole in the CNMI.
"In the Mariana Islands, there is a loophole that you can get into Saipan and have a baby there and have it declared a citizen.
"Back in 2009, visas were wavered for the communist Chinese and for Russians to be able to come in to the CNMI and be able to recreate there and things like that. No visa required.
He claimed that the situation got so bad a decade ago that there were far more births by Chinese women happening on Saipan than there was of the local residents.
However, figures from the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation show otherwise, as data provided by CHCC from 2008 to 2024 showed tourist births only outpaced resident births in 2017 and 2018 (562 vs 429 and 581 vs 493, respectively).
Tiffany said at the time that through birth tourism in the CNMI, the US allowing its greatest adversary - China - to have its citizens give birth to US citizens.
"We are allowing them to be able to come in to our territory and simply be able to declare citizenship for children of the communist Chinese being born on that island.
"That is the absurdity of birthright tourism and allowing, just think about it, a great threat to our foreign policy that happens as a result of this. So, it's time to close this up.
"This is just one small example of how our immigration system has been used in so many different ways to be weaponized against the American people. And a couple of people have said about how this devalues citizenship in America."
The EVS-TAP program involves electronic screening, a maximum 14-day stay, and additional security measures for Chinese nationals traveling to the CNMI and Guam.
