Staff Reports
The House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses held a hearing on birth tourism this week, and the moment was striking: Dr. Wladimir Lorentz, the founder and chief medical officer of Miami Medical Concierge Services, LLC — doing business as Have My Baby in Miami — declined to answer questions, invoking the Fifth Amendment while a federal probe is pending. Representative Brandon Gill led the questioning, and what played out should make every American who cares about the rule of law sit up straight.
Fifth Amendment on full display
When Representative Brandon Gill pressed Dr. Lorentz about marketing and whether his operation facilitated foreign nationals coming to the United States to give birth, Lorentz repeatedly said, “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer any questions…on the grounds that a truthful answer may tend to incriminate me.” Legally, that is his right. Politically and practically, it is not soothing. If you run a business openly advertising to foreign clients and then refuse to explain how it operates when subpoenaed by Congress and while a federal investigation is underway, the public is allowed to be suspicious.
The evidence the committee laid out
The Task Force did not come empty-handed. Committee materials identify the company as a concierge medical-tourism service that explicitly marketed to international patients and cite estimates of tens of thousands of births tied to temporary visitors each year — numbers the committee used to argue this is a problem at scale. The packet also points to prior Department of Justice prosecutions and a State Department rule aimed at curbing visa travel for the explicit purpose of giving birth. That context does not prove wrongdoing by Lorentz or Have My Baby in Miami, but it does show why the committee moved from letters to subpoenas and why the hearing mattered.
Why Americans should care about birth tourism
At stake is more than an awkward appearance before Congress. Birthright citizenship is a real legal status for children born on U.S. soil, and those children can later sponsor parents for green cards. When businesses openly market “birth tourism” services that help foreign nationals arrange U.S. births, they are exploiting a loophole and putting strain on immigration and public systems. Voters who expect fair, orderly immigration should expect Congress and enforcement agencies to close obvious loopholes and punish fraud, not shrug and hope the problem goes away.
Fixable problem — and a warning to bureaucrats
This is a straightforward set of fixes: stricter vetting at visa issuance, clear rules and enforcement against willful misrepresentation on applications, aggressive prosecutions when laws are broken, and scrutiny of businesses that market U.S. birth as a product. Representative Brandon Gill deserves credit for forcing this hearing and for subpoenaing testimony. The Fifth Amendment protects individuals — it should not become a shield that allows shady businesses to operate in plain sight. Congress and the Department of Justice must now follow up and force answers, not accept silence as a substitute for accountability.
