More than a million people are coming to America this summer for this year’s World Cup soccer matches. It’s “sports tourism.”
At The Drill Down, however, host Peter Schweizer is more interested in stopping what he has called “birth tourism.”
“The Trump administration announced actions against networks in Africa that were designed to provide birth tourism,” Schweizer says. “This is where foreign women, wives or girlfriends of people in these countries are sneaking into the United States to give birth so their child will be born a U.S. citizen. We have exposed this as it relates to China, Russia, Turkey, and other countries. but this is a positive development – exciting news.”
A US embassy in West Africa uncovered a sophisticated birth tourism network of more than 100 foreign nationals using fraudulent documents and visa “fixers” to get themselves visas so they could obtain U.S. citizenship for their children. “In Europe, they found an embassy with four hundred suspicious cases since 2024,” Schweizer notes. “They’ve also found another network in North Africa where they revoked more than a hundred visas, all under this kind of birth tourism umbrella… It’s a good start.”
Schweizer’s most recent bestselling book, The Invisible Coup, detailed the problem of birth tourism, particularly by the Chinese at an “industrial scale.” Just before its debut, he briefed the book to the President and several Cabinet secretaries in the Oval Office. Details from the book were included in the administration’s oral argument brief to the US Supreme Court in a birthright citizenship case the court is considering and will rule on later this month.
“Research from this organization — from your book – was cited,” co-host Eric Eggers tells Schweizer. It’s a far cry from the actions of previous administrations.
“As I recount in the book, the Obama and Biden administrations actually encouraged [birth tourism]. They told people at the Customs and Border Patrol agency that if somebody is coming to the United States and is pregnant, don’t ask them any questions about it,” Schweizer says. “According to the law, you’re supposed to ask them. And, if you suspect the individual is coming to the United States for the sole purpose of giving birth, you are not to allow them in the country,” he says. “The Obama and Biden administrations told Customs and Border Patrol to ignore that rule.”
“It’s a good start. We’ve talked about this subject as it relates to China, where you’re talking about thousands, potentially a hundred thousand a year, according to China’s numbers,” Schweizer says.
The birth tourism problem that the Trump administration is addressing is wider than that. “These are political elites, or they’re drug cartel leaders, as we’ve talked about. The head of the Sinaloa cartel sent his two kids here, his wife here to give birth to twins,” Schweizer says. “You’ve got another drug cartel in Mexico that’s being headed by a US citizen who was born in this country, through birthright citizenship. Trump is really the only modern American president who stepped up and said, ‘This is ridiculous. This is absurd.’ It’s a massively important issue,” Schweizer adds.
Still, it highlights something great about the United States — “what a great country we have,” Schweizer says. “Even CCP officials that hate the United States… They’re not doing this in Russia. They’re not doing this in other countries. They’re doing it in the United States because they recognize what a great place it is.”
So have a number of social media feeds by road-tripping European soccer fans who are here for the matches, which are scattered across the U.S. Twitter and Instagram are loaded with their posts, standing with mouths agape before such American delicacies as the brisket sandwich and one hundred gas pumps at Buc-ee’s, or late-night pancakes at the Waffle House. For all Americans celebrating the country’s 250th birthday, their joy serves is a tonic, a reminder that despite our current disagreements, America is still the wonder of the world.
World issues never go away, however, even causing U.S. immigration officials to send back a credentialed FIFA referee from Somalia. Immigration officials denied entry into the U.S. for Omar Abdullah Kadir Artan, likely over concerns that he had connections with a terrorist group such as Al-Shabab back in Somalia. Support staff for the team from Iran was denied entry into the U.S. because of their connections to the regime and are instead being based in Mexico, which is also a site for some of the World Cup matches.
“I would argue these immigration problems are rightfully occurring, because it turns out that the Iranian soccer team has some pretty close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards,” Schweizer says. “Essentially what’s happened is that some of the support staff for the Iranian team have been told, ‘Nope, you cannot come into the country.’ They’ve been denied. You also had a situation where the Iranian team claimed they had security concerns. So instead of being based in Arizona, they are now being based out of Mexico.”
“These are not made-up or exaggerated claims. the fact is that the IRGC is actually involved in the Iranian soccer team in a major way,” Eggers says. “The guy that’s in charge of the Iranian Soccer Federation is a guy named Medi Taj… He’s a former commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So, while the 26 members of the Iranian soccer team were permitted to come in the country, Mr. Taj was denied by Canada because of his being a former commander in the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard.”
“There’s a little bit of a backstory there and there’s precedent,” Schweizer says. “At the World Cup in 2022, which was held in Qatar, there were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that were in the stands monitoring people against expressing anti-Iranian sentiments,” he recalls.
“Axios ran a story about how Trump’s immigration laws were putting a shadow over the joys of the World Cup,” Eggers says. “The fact of the matter is, it’s all very well grounded in the past behaviors of Iran and a lot of these other sketchy people that are tied to FIFA.”
The U.S. government even denied entry to tourists from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That denial, however, had to do with the current outbreaks of the Ebola virus that are happening in that country now.
“So, it’s not just Iran or the Somali ref,” Eggers says.
The U.S. State Department issued warnings to Americans planning to go to Mexico to watch matches. “I don’t know why an American would go to Mexico to watch a World Cup match, but it turns out there are some states in Mexico that aren’t super stable,” Eggers says. “A Pentagon study just a couple of years ago estimated that twenty-five percent of Mexico’s land mass is controlled by the drug cartels. So, I can imagine that in some of the stadiums in which they’re playing in Mexico, it’s very possible that those are in municipalities or in states that are actually on the take from the drug cartels.”
He adds that the Mexican government has deployed 100,000 troops to guarantee security in three cities. “Per the U.S. State Department in Nuevo Leone, visitors should be aware… of the risks of terrorism and crime, as well as kidnapping. There are multiple highways they say have been the site of armed robberies and carjackings. Travelers should not use these routes after dark, according to the State Department. So, heads up.”
The hosts then play some funny clips, including one of an Italian fan overcome with joy at the idea of free soda refills.
Even with the security concerns, “this is, I think, a great way for us to celebrate our country. We’re coming up on the 250th anniversary, and we’re divided. But what’s remarkable, are these people coming from overseas who are visiting the United States, in some cases for the first time, and they are just shocked and amazed and so pleased about things that we take for granted every single day,” Schweizer says.
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