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Two people convicted of running a Chinese 'maternity hotel' in Rancho Cucamonga
Concern about people traveling to the U.S. to give birth are not new. Here protesters gather outside San Bernardino County Superior Court in 2015 as a judge hears a motion for a preliminary injunction against a Chino Hills maternity hotel.
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Irfan Khan
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Two people were convicted on Friday of operating a maternity hotel in Rancho Cucamonga, which rented housing units and provided other services to pregnant women from China to give birth in Southern California in an industry known as "birth tourism".
Rancho Cucamonga residents Michael Wei Yueh Liu and Jing Dong were found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of international money laundering, according to authorities.
The operation
The maternity hotel operated by Liu and Dong was in business for at least between 2012 and 2015, according to authorities. Besides providing housing, the two offered guidance to their clients — including tips on how to:
- Obtain visas to stay in the U.S.
- Get legal documents like birth certificates for their newborns
- Talk to customs officials to evade suspicion.
- Choose entry points to the U.S. "with perceived less customs scrutiny, such as Hawaii."
Liu and Dong received money from overseas and used that money to promote their scheme.
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Authorities said the pair charged tens of thousands of dollars for those services.
The backstory on maternity hotels
The vast Chinese diaspora in the region has made Southern California one of the epicenters of Chinese birth tourism — where non-citizens travel to the U.S. to give their newborns birthright citizenship. Typically, the women and their babies leave the region shortly after childbirth.
The region has seen periodic crackdowns of these establishments — a high-profile raid took place in the San Gabriel Valley area about a decade ago, around the same time the Rancho Cucamonga hotel operated by Liu and Dong were in business.
What's next
Liu and Dong are scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 9 and will face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the conspiracy charge, and up to 20 years in federal prison for each of the international money laundering charge.
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