Congressional pressure mounts to curb Chinese travel to CNMI; Delegate urges data‑driven approach
- Admin
- 3 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Bryan Manabat
Three U.S. Republican senators are calling on the Trump administration to revoke visa‑free entry for Chinese nationals traveling to the Northern Mariana Islands, arguing that the visa waiver program has fueled birth tourism, strained local resources and created national security vulnerabilities.
In a letter dated Jan. 15, Sens. Rick Scott, Jim Banks and Markwayne Mullin urged Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to end the Biden‑era EVS‑TAP authorization for Chinese travelers and remove Hong Kong from the broader Guam‑CNMI Visa Waiver Program.
The senators cited historic spikes in Chinese birth tourism, alleged exploitation of U.S. citizenship laws and past criminal cases involving human smuggling from Saipan to Guam.
The Guam‑CNMI Visa Waiver Program, administered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, allows citizens of designated countries to enter the CNMI for up to 45 days without a U.S. tourist visa.
Hong Kong passport holders are among those eligible. The program is separate from the U.S. mainland Visa Waiver Program and applies only to the two Pacific territories.
A subset of that system, the CNMI Economic Vitality and Security Travel Authorization Program, or EVS‑TAP, was created during the first Trump administration and implemented in 2025.
EVS‑TAP allows prescreened Chinese nationals to visit the CNMI for up to 14 days without a visa, subject to additional security vetting and advance electronic authorization. The program was developed in response to CNMI government requests for a controlled mechanism to support tourism while limiting long‑stay birth tourism.
The senators argued that visa‑free access has enabled “a veritable cottage industry” of Chinese nationals giving birth in Saipan, pointing to federal prosecutions and media reports documenting the practice over the past decade.
They also tied the issue to broader geopolitical tensions, warning that children born in the CNMI to foreign parents could later petition for their families and potentially seek sensitive U.S. government positions.
Their letter echoes an earlier bipartisan call from members of both the U.S. House and Senate, who last year pressed the administration to restrict Chinese travel to the CNMI over similar concerns.
The earlier effort framed birth tourism and human‑smuggling cases as evidence that the visa program was being exploited, setting the stage for the renewed Senate push this month.
But CNMI Del. Congress Kimberlyn King‑Hinds is pushing back firmly.
In a statement provided through spokesperson Christopher Concepcion, King‑Hinds rejected the senators’ claims and said the calls to restrict Chinese travel are not supported by current data or local conditions.
“Congresswoman King‑Hinds does not support changes to the CNMI‑Guam Visa Waiver Program based on claims that birth tourism is overwhelming the Commonwealth Health Center,” Concepcion said.
“Birth tourism in the CNMI is not a major issue when viewed in the context of total foreign births in the United States today, particularly given that millions of Chinese nationals travel to the mainland United States each year," he added.
He said the Commonwealth Health Center “is not overwhelmed by foreign births,” noting that births from tourists of all nationalities have dropped significantly since reforms implemented during President Trump’s first term.
“Recent data shows that resident and non-resident births are nine times higher than tourist births in the CNMI,” he said.
King‑Hinds’ office emphasized that EVS‑TAP was designed to stabilize the CNMI’s struggling tourism‑dependent economy.
With visitor arrivals still far below pre‑pandemic levels, Concepcion said further restricting access to key markets would “hasten the collapse of the CNMI’s only industry” and ultimately harm the very healthcare system critics claim to protect.
“It would do far greater harm to the fragile healthcare system on the islands,” he said.
The delegate’s office also underscored that border control and traveler screening remain fully under federal authority.
“The EVS‑TAP vetting process, administered by the Department of Homeland Security, has since done an excellent job screening travelers prior to their departure from China,” Concepcion said.
King‑Hinds is urging federal officials to ensure that any discussion about modifying the visa program includes the CNMI government and is grounded in accurate data, local realities and recognition of tourism’s central role in the islands’ economic survival.
Her office provided supporting documents, including CNMI birth statistics from 2008 to 2024, a letter to Noem regarding EVS‑TAP, a joint appeal to Trump on the CNMI’s economic crisis and the 2019 Covenant Section 902 report, which itself recommended EVS‑TAP as a tool to reduce birth tourism by limiting stays to 14 days.
CNMI birth statistics from CHCC show a surge of Chinese tourist births in 2018, with 574 recorded, followed by a dramatic decline in subsequent years, reaching a total of 55 in 2024.
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