Why a Taiwanese woman gave birth on a plane — only to be separated from her child

Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, on October 8th, a Taiwanese woman with the surname Jian went into labor on China Airlines Flight 8. Luckily for her, a UCLA doctor was on the same flight; and with the assistance of the flight crew, Dr. Angelica Zen was able to deliver the baby. (The delivery was captured on a cell-phone video.) And the flight, which was supposed to go to Los Angeles, ended up touching down in Alaska instead so the woman could get postpartum care.

The baby is still in the United States. But the mother has been deported back to Taiwan. She's been criticized by Taiwanese government officials. And she might end up having to pay the Taiwanese government (which is the majority owner of China Airlines) to cover the cost of diverting the plane to Alaska.

This sounds incredibly harsh — and maybe it is. But the reason that government officials and the media in Taiwan are so upset with this woman is that they suspect she lied to the airline (and to the US government) about her pregnancy in order to get onto that plane, in the hopes of giving birth in the United States. In other words, she was trying to have an "anchor baby" — and it might have backfired. Here's why Taiwan is so concerned.

"Birth tourism" is real, and it's a problem — particularly in East Asia

Pretty much anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen, regardless of her parents' immigration status. Some immigration hawks worry that this is being exploited: people are deliberately having babies in the US so that the child can turn around and sponsor his parents to become legal US residents. (For the record, this would take a long, long time; you can't sponsor any relatives until you turn 18.)

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