EGN NEWS DESK
LOS ANGELES — A jury on Friday convicted a Rancho Cuamonga couple of operating a enterprise that helped pregnant Chinese ladies journey to the United States with out revealing their intentions to provide delivery to infants who would robotically have American citizenship.
Michael Liu, 59, and Phoebe Dong, 47, also called Jing Dong, have been discovered responsible of 1 rely of conspiracy and 10 counts of cash laundering in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles.
The case towards the pair went to trial 9 years after federal authorities searched greater than a dozen houses throughout Southern California in a crackdown on so-called delivery tourism operators who authorities mentioned inspired pregnant ladies to lie on their visa paperwork and conceal their pregnancies and helped the ladies journey to ship their infants within the United States.
Liu and Dong have been charged in 2019 together with greater than a dozen others, together with a lady who later pleaded responsible to operating an organization referred to as “You Win USA” and was sentenced to 10 months in jail.
Prosecutors and attorneys for the defendants declined to remark in courtroom on Friday.
Prosecutors alleged Liu and Dong’s firm “USA Happy Baby” helped a number of hundred delivery vacationers between 2012 and 2015 and charged because the vacationers a lot as $40,000 for companies together with house leases throughout their stays in Southern California.
Prosecutors mentioned the pair labored with abroad entities that coached ladies on what to say throughout visa interviews and to authorities upon arriving in U.S. airports and recommended they put on unfastened clothes to cover pregnancies and take care to not “waddle like a penguin.”
“Their enterprise mannequin all the time included deceiving U.S. immigration authorities,” federal prosecutor Kevin Fu instructed jurors throughout closing arguments.
During the trial, protection attorneys for the couple —who are actually separated — mentioned prosecutors didn’t hyperlink their purchasers to the ladies in China and solely offered companies as soon as they have been within the United States. Kevin Cole, an lawyer for Liu, mentioned the federal government didn’t show the case past an inexpensive doubt or tie his shopper to communication with the pregnant vacationers in China.
John McNicholas, who represented Dong, argued delivery tourism isn’t a criminal offense. He mentioned the ladies traveled abroad with assist from different corporations, not his shopper’s, and that Dong assisted ladies who would have confronted punitive actions beneath China’s one-child coverage had they returned to provide delivery again house.
“It’s an admirable job she is taking over. It shouldn’t be criminalized,” he mentioned.
Birth tourism companies have lengthy operated in California and different states and have catered to {couples} not solely from China, however Russia, Nigeria and elsewhere. It isn’t unlawful to go to the United States whereas pregnant, however authorities mentioned mendacity to consular and immigration officers in regards to the motive for journey on authorities paperwork isn’t permitted.
The key draw for vacationers has been that the United States presents birthright citizenship, which many imagine may assist their kids safe a U.S. faculty training and supply a kind of future insurance coverage coverage — particularly for the reason that vacationers themselves can apply for everlasting residency as soon as their American baby turns 21.
Liu and Dong are scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 9.
