‘Birth tourism’ is perfectly legal, a boon to economy

In response to the column “Made in Saipan” by Jaime Vergara that came out on April 13, readers might be more interested in the motivation of these mothers-to-be to consider this perfectly legal “birth tourism” practiced long before the CNMI became a U.S. entity. Even of more interest might be the significant financial benefits received to this small CNMI tax base. What percentage of government revenue comes from “birth and education tourism” annually?

Financially, these mothers-to-be bring money to pay for local rent, groceries at local stores, restaurants, taxi rides to and from medical checkups, and pay over $5,000 to CHC to deliver their babies, in effect providing the financially strapped CHC badly needed additional funding, subsidizing for local residence who “forget” to pay. Think about the word-of-mouth effect promoting more tourism. On a small island this has a tremendous impact on the CNMI government funds.

I’m sure the very intelligent Gov. Eloy Inos, charged with increasing the CNMI revenue base, would think twice about shooting the CNMI in the economic leg by killing this perfectly legal “birth tourism” industry when, in fact, it is has been practiced for decades by Hawaii, Guam, and all the major ports of entry in the U.S. mainland, including Los Angeles and New York on a much larger scale. Why in the world would the CNMI, the absolute closest U.S. destination to well over a billion potential visitors in Asia, let the big guys, who with the voting rights to kill the non-voting CNMI’s garment industry, reap all the benefits? You would be hard pressed to disagree these “birth and education tourism” industries are much cleaner than the tourism generated by the defunct garment industry supported by most in the past.

Most of these mothers-to-be, particularly from China and Korea, plan way ahead when their child will turn 18 years old and then take their child’s long dormant U.S. passport to benefit yet from another great and lucrative “university education tourism” economy, also in practice for decades in the mainland USA and Hawaii and Guam. Even the CNMI only has to look at who is paying and subsidizing NMI college tuition cost for resident students attending college. Why give it to Guam, Hawaii, and the mainland?

Local politics could not be further from these foreigners’ minds as they prefer to move on to the bigger world the mainland has to offer and leave the CNMI for the locals who prefer island living. Furthermore you can be certain these visitors prefer to leave local politics to locals. Remember, they are visiting from some countries where there is a heavy price paid to get into political issues. Lying low is the norm.

Perfectly legal “birth and education tourism” outweigh negatives caused by illegals and overstayers potentially taking local jobs. If their long view is the future education 18 years from now of their sons/daughters, I doubt you will find local crime being perpetrated by this type of visitors. The CNMI benefits economically, even more than larger U.S. neighbors, and you can be sure they will not give this tourism up.

Playford M. Ramsey
Lantau, Hong Kong