Man Sentenced for Helping Pregnant Chinese Women Travel to Give Birth in SoCal

A man who operated a Southern California-based “birth tourism” scheme that charged Chinese clients tens of thousands of dollars to help them give birth in the United States to obtain citizenship for their children was sentenced Monday to 41 months behind bars.

Michael Wei Yueh Liu, 59, of Rancho Cucamonga, was convicted in September in Los Angeles federal court of one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of international money laundering. His co-defendant, Jing Dong, 47, also of Rancho Cucamonga, is scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks on the same counts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said that from roughly January 2012 to March 2015, Liu and Dong ran a maternity house and rented Southern California apartments to provide short-term housing and other services to pregnant women from China so they could give birth in the United States. The women would generally return to China about a month or two after giving birth, prosecutors said.

Liu and Dong advised customers of their USA Happy Baby Inc. business on how to hide their pregnancies from immigration authorities, according to prosecutors. The defendants also knew — or deliberately avoided learning — that their clients lied on visa applications submitted to immigration authorities.

The visa applications usually stated that the women were simply traveling as tourists, with their visits lasting days or weeks — when they would actually stay for several months, prosecutors said.