Rep. Harriet Hageman is pushing President Trump to seal every loophole foreigners use to exploit America’s surrogacy industry — and turn American citizenship into a product you can buy.
The Wyoming Republican sent a letter to the White House on Thursday outlining concrete steps Trump can take to shut down birth tourism schemes, even after the Supreme Court’s Trump v. Barbara decision limited his initial executive order.
Hageman’s message: the August 6 executive order banning citizenship for children of “alien enemies” is a good start, but it’s not enough.
“Your decision to prohibit international surrogacy is an important step, but more can and should be done to deter bad actors by eliminating the incentives that facilitate this practice,” Hageman wrote in the letter obtained by The Federalist.
“This case, along with the broader challenges posed by cultural differences, language barriers, and conflicting state laws, underscores the need for federal action.”
The Trump-backed Senate candidate cited the story of Kyla Simpson — a surrogate who gestated three babies for a Chinese man who never picked them up at birth. Simpson raised the babies for months, even navigating one of their deaths from respiratory complications, after the foreign buyer abandoned them.
That’s the real face of America’s international rent-a-womb industry: foreigners manufacturing American citizens for sale, then shipping them overseas with birth certificates, passports, and Social Security numbers intact.
Those documents make it cheaper and easier for foreign nationals to eventually gain U.S. citizenship themselves.
Hageman reminded Trump he has the legal authority to fix this under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president “broad authority to restrict the entry of classes of foreign nationals whose admission you determine would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States.'”
Her recommended action plan:
- Direct the State Department and USCIS to deny visas to anyone involved in international surrogacy arrangements with U.S. clinics
- Make those individuals permanently ineligible for entry under any visa category — asylum, refugee status, lottery immigration, family-based immigration, or citizenship petitions
- Hold fertility organizations and surrogacy agencies accountable for facilitating birth tourism
Hageman named names: agencies like Surrogate First and Creative Family Connections actively advertise birth tourism loopholes to overseas clients. Lawmakers have identified more than 107 Chinese-owned surrogacy agencies in Southern California that reportedly cater almost exclusively to wealthy Chinese clients — some linked to Chinese state-owned entities.
Yet those agencies remain in good standing with major U.S. fertility organizations, including ASRM, SART, RESOLVE, and SEEDS.
Hageman warned that groups like ASRM have “failed to establish adequate standards or oversight” and maintain suspect relationships with “physicians and scientists of Chinese origin within and outside China” through its Chinese Special Interest Group.
“This relationship warrants scrutiny, particularly given the broader national security and immigration implications of international commercial surrogacy,” Hageman wrote.
The Wyoming congresswoman’s push comes as the DOJ targets fraudulent birth tourism schemes — but Hageman’s letter makes clear enforcement alone won’t stop the industry.
The incentives are too strong. Citizenship has become a financial product foreigners can buy through surrogacy. Trump has the authority to cut off the supply chain at the source — deny the visas, ban the buyers, hold the agencies accountable.
Hageman just handed him the roadmap.
Memorandum for DOJ Employees on Prosecution of Fraudulent Birth Tourism Schemes from Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/hoilA5o2TE
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) June 30, 2026
