In the foreseeable future, China and the U.S. will be the two strongest countries in the world. . . . It will definitely be a win-win situation for your children in the future if they have both these nationalities.” Those were the words of a Chinese national speaking to NPR about the rising number of Chinese citizens turning to U.S.-based surrogate mothers to have children. A caseworker at a U.S.-based surrogacy agency tailored to Chinese clients added, “Having children in the U.S. will always bring advantages, because America is a country for immigrants.” For these men—and a growing cadre of Chinese nationals—the primary benefit boils down to one word: citizenship. That was in 2022. 

As traditional birth tourism—traveling to the United States late in pregnancy to give birth and secure U.S. citizenship for a child—began to wane under increasing scrutiny and FBI enforcement, a new form of high-tech birth tourism emerged. While most developed nations prohibit international commercial surrogacy, the United States, along with Ukraine, supports a thriving reproductive tourism industry. It allows foreign nationals to have children through American surrogate mothers and return home with a baby and U.S. citizenship in hand. Once the child turns twenty-one, the entire family can apply for citizenship through a green card application—a method, one surrogacy agency notes, that is a “cheaper alternative to the American EB-5 visa.” 

I stumbled upon this phenomenon in 2022. Given the misguided U.S. interpretation of birthright citizenship, a growing number of Chinese nationals were coming to the U.S. to have babies. Some were couples—beyond their own childbearing years—who wanted more children once China’s “one child” policy was lifted. Others were single men who were unable to find a female partner willing to have children, as Chinese women increasingly prioritized career over families. Still others are in same-sex relationships, and, wanting to please their parents, go abroad to have children. Given that surrogacy is illegal in China, the U.S. was an alluring alternative for wealthy Chinese citizens. 

The problem is far worse than I initially imagined. Not only does the United States lack any federal law governing domestic or international surrogacy, but recent reporting suggests the industry is being scaled in ways that defy even its own justifications. An unsettling Wall Street Journal investigation found that a growing number of ultra-wealthy Chinese nationals are using American surrogates to have as many children as possible—sometimes dozens at a time, and in extreme cases, more than a hundred.

The motivations vary. Some view surrogacy as a way to secure heirs or build dynasties amid China’s collapsing birthrate. Others openly describe plans to marry daughters strategically, consolidate wealth, or raise large cohorts of children groomed for leadership in business and technology. In a striking reversal of the male preference that once defined China’s one-child policy, some intended parents now deliberately select for girls, citing industries they believe increasingly favor female leadership.

The Wall Street Journal illustrated this phenomenon through the case of Xu Bo, a reclusive Chinese videogame billionaire who has become a symbol of surrogacy’s excesses. Xu, who lives in China, sought legal recognition as the parent of multiple children born through American surrogates. In 2023, as the Journal reports, a California judge denied his request—an unusual move in a system where parentage orders are typically routine—leaving several children in legal limbo. At the time, some of the children were being cared for by nannies in Southern California while awaiting documentation to travel abroad.

When asked about the number of children Xu Bo had, the “Duoyi Network said the 300 figure was wrong but confirmed a stunning fact: ‘After many years of effort’ through surrogacy in the U.S., Xu has ‘only a little over 100’ children.” Only one hundred children. 

Cases like Xu’s are not occurring in isolation. The New York Times also recently published a harrowing account of women from Asia trafficked into illegal and abusive surrogacy arrangements that often involved forced egg retrieval and exploitation so severe that some victims said it was worse than prostitution, because “they really had no idea what had been done to their bodies. Sex work was self-explanatory, but white pills, injections and suppositories could be anything.” Together, these stories expose an industry that treats both women’s bodies and children’s lives as commodities that can be sold on the international market. 

All of it is governed by contracts and legal frameworks designed to normalize what is, in effect, baby-selling. Indeed, the only legal distinction between baby-selling and a “legitimate” commercial surrogacy agreement is timing: whether the contract is signed before or after a child is conceived. A child born through this process can have as many as six adults involved in his or her creation—the egg donor, sperm donor, intended parent or parents, surrogate mother, and IVF physician—yet no law or contract is designed to represent the child’s best interests. When disputes arise or arrangements unravel, it is the child who bears the ultimate cost: through abortion, abandonment, or neglect.

These stories illustrate what recent studies have long shown. In 2024, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s journal Fertility and Sterility published an article examining international commercial surrogacy contracts between 2014–2020. Not only did the number of foreign surrogacy agreements in the U.S. nearly double during that time frame, but the report found that the international “rent-a-womb” industry is disproportionately fueled by Chinese nationals (41.7 percent).

The most common demographic overall? Asian men over the age of forty-two. Such persons were also far more likely to use embryonic genetic screening tools to select the ideal human embryo. With 75 percent of these contracts taking place in California, it appears the Silicon Valley pronatalist’s dream of not merely having more babies, but more babies of a certain kind, lives on in these Chinese billionaires—many of whom cited Elon Musk as their role model. 

Thankfully, lawmakers are beginning to respond. Sen. Rick Scott recently introduced the SAFE Kids Act, which would bar foreign nationals from adversarial countries such as China from accessing the U.S. commercial surrogacy industry. While narrowly targeted at the most egregious cases, the bill reflects growing recognition that the current system is rife with abuse. Similarly, President Trump’s executive order “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” signaled renewed scrutiny of birthright citizenship, particularly when it is obtained through legal loopholes rather than genuine ties to the country. Yet it remains unclear whether the order’s current language would deny citizenship to children born via surrogacy or egg donation to foreign nationals.

Within days of the executive order, surrogacy organizations published guidance to preserve that loophole. Immigration lawyers and agencies have closely parsed the executive order’s definitions of “mother,” “father,” and “progenitor,” arguing that if a U.S. citizen surrogate gives birth, the child should automatically receive citizenship, even when the intended parents are foreign nationals. Some agencies have gone further, advertising procedural workarounds such as a “two-step birth certificate process” designed specifically to secure U.S. citizenship for children of international clients. 

Americans recognize that something has gone wrong. In a J.L. Partners survey earlier this year, 33 percent of respondents said the U.S. should ban non-citizens from accessing commercial surrogacy services, 29 percent said there should be strict regulations and limitations but not an outright ban, and 12 percent said that clinics should be required to report and track foreign clients. 

With public opinion so clearly aligned amid mounting evidence of citizenship arbitrage, large-scale child production, and systemic disregard for child welfare, lawmakers face a choice. They can continue pretending this is a private transaction between consenting adults, or they can confront the reality that international commercial surrogacy in the United States has become a market in babies and passports. If citizenship is to mean anything at all, it cannot remain for sale.

Image by Andrii Yalanskyi via Alamy.