Chinese elites and billionaires reportedly are turning to surrogates to quietly have large numbers of U.S.-born babies.
An exclusive report by The Wall Street Journal on Saturday described how a Los Angeles family court judge grew alarmed after court clerks noticed the same intended parent name repeatedly appearing in sealed surrogacy filings.
The man, Chinese video game billionaire Xu Bo, sought parental rights to multiple unborn children at once and told the judge — appearing by video from China through an interpreter — that he hoped to have roughly 20 U.S.-born children through surrogacy, "boys" in particular, to someday take over his business.
According to people who attended the confidential hearing, Judge Amy Pellman concluded Xu's plan looked less like building a family and more like treating children as a production line.
In a rare move, she denied his parentage request, leaving the children he paid to be born in legal limbo — an unusual rebuke in an industry where parentage orders are typically routine.
The Journal said the case is a window into a little-known but growing trend: Wealthy Chinese clients using America’s largely unregulated, state-by-state surrogacy system to produce U.S.-born children at scale, sometimes without ever setting foot in the country.
Industry professionals told the newspaper a sophisticated network of agencies, clinics, law firms, delivery services, and nanny arrangements has sprung up to meet demand, with costs reaching about $200,000 per child.
Critics argue this is "regulatory arbitrage" in its purest form by outsourcing pregnancy to jurisdictions with looser rules while capturing one of the most valuable legal benefits available — U.S. citizenship at birth under the 14th Amendment.
That constitutional guarantee has long been a conservative flashpoint, and the Journal noted the legal landscape is in flux, with the federal government already tightening scrutiny of "birth tourism" in recent years and the Supreme Court weighing questions tied to citizenship policy.
The Journal also reported federal law enforcement has taken interest. It cited interviews and inquiries involving the FBI and Department of Homeland Security with some U.S. surrogates who worked with Chinese parents, though the purpose of those investigations has not been publicly explained.
Beyond the high-end "dynasty" cases, the reporting suggests a broader market that consists of older parents, executives who want children without the burdens of pregnancy, and same-sex couples — all with the money to keep arrangements quiet back home, where commercial surrogacy is illegal and frequently criticized as exploitative.
Those concerns escalated after a separate Los Angeles-area case came to light.
In July, KABC in Los Angeles reported that an Arcadia couple's 21 children, most born through surrogates, were taken into protective custody amid a child abuse investigation after a 2-month-old suffered a traumatic head injury.
The station quoted investigators describing severe discipline in the home and said the FBI was working with local police to untangle how the operation functioned.
The Associated Press similarly reported that 21 children were placed with child-welfare authorities, with police investigating whether surrogate mothers were misled and noting business records tied to a surrogacy company previously registered at the couple’s address.
The Journal noted Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., recently introduced legislation aimed at blocking surrogacy in the U.S. for intended parents from certain foreign countries, including China, citing trafficking concerns raised by cases like the Arcadia investigation.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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