Pregnant SA travellers could be denied a US visa

Posted on 17 February 2020

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.

 

Image: Unsplash






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