For many pregnant Chinese, a U.S. passport for baby remains a powerful lure

The spokesman, who said expectant mothers typically claim they are going to the United States as tourists, compared the baby consultancies to services that help foreign students apply for American universities: "If you have the money, they give you the service. They tell you how to prepare your dossier."

"I'm sure people in Congress would call it a loophole," the spokesman said.

Many anti-immigration activists in the United States agree. Some argue that the 14th Amendment -- aimed at guaranteeing citizenship rights to freed black slaves -- was never meant to provide an instant passport to the children of people who are in the country illegally or who travel there expressly to gain U.S. citizenship for their child.

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have no specific regulations regarding pregnant foreign visitors, which critics see as an issue.

"The problem here is not with the travel agencies or even the women," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. "The real problem is the State Department. The regulations do not permit them to turn pregnant women down."

Krikorian said that it is unclear whether or how the 14th Amendment could be changed and that in any event, Congress has never seriously addressed the possibility.

Zhou, a former marketing director, and Chao, a former television producer in Taiwan, said they have helped between 500 and 600 mothers give birth to American babies in the five years they have been in business. They started with themselves, when Chao went to the United States to give birth to daughter Fiona, now 4.

An affluent clientele

Now, they said, their clients include Chinese doctors, lawyers, business leaders, government officials, well-known media personalities -- most of whom do not want media attention and, Zhao said, would not agree to be interviewed.

About 40 percent of their clients come from Shanghai, 30 percent from Beijing and the rest from Guangzhou and elsewhere, including Taiwan. Some, the couple said, were giving birth to their second child to skirt China's one-child policy. Most say they do not intend to live in the United States themselves.

And all are affluent, Zhou and Chao said. Unlike the poor illegal immigrants from Central America who try to cross the border to have their babies in the United States, Zhou said, these Chinese parents fly in on first-class seats.

"They also do some shopping," he said, "so they are contributing to the economy."

The reasons they want U.S. passports for their babies are varied, but most come down to two key factors -- education and setting.