Abbott's Answer to a Supreme Court Loss: Go After the Hospitals
Executive Order GA-57 weaponizes licensing boards against "birth tourism" weeks after the Court affirmed birthright citizenship.
WASHINGTON — Greg Abbott just gave six different Texas agencies the power to pull a doctor’s license over a billboard.
The governor signed Executive Order GA-57 on Monday, directing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, its Office of Inspector General, the Texas Medical Board, the Board of Nursing, the Department of Licensing and Regulation, and the Department of State Health Services to investigate hospitals, birthing centers and medical staff accused of marketing so-called “birth tourism” — trips by pregnant travelers to the U.S. to give birth. The order lets those agencies revoke licenses, cut off state contracts, deny benefits, and refer cases for criminal prosecution.
What triggered it
The order leans on a Texas Health and Human Services Commission probe Abbott ordered on July 7 after reports surfaced that hospitals were advertising birth packages abroad. HHSC has already referred two Texas hospitals to the state attorney general over billboards placed in a foreign country advertising “birth packages” starting at $3,950, according to the order. The Texas attorney general is separately suing a Houston-area facility accused of coaching more than 1,000 foreign nationals to mislead immigration officials about why they were traveling to the U.S.
The Supreme Court backdrop
GA-57 arrives three weeks after a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Barbara that the Constitution guarantees citizenship to children born in the U.S., including to parents who are undocumented or visiting temporarily — a decision Abbott’s order quotes dissenting justices to attack, citing warnings from Justices Thomas and Alito about citizenship extending to the children of “a foreign spy” or “a strategic adversary.” The same day the ruling came down, the Justice Department directed U.S. attorneys nationwide to prioritize prosecuting birth tourism schemes under fraud, identity theft and health care fraud statutes.
What comes next
The order lets Texas agencies pursue birth tourism cases on their own — but paragraph two goes further, authorizing those same agencies to formally partner with federal prosecutors, sharing information and resources, so long as Abbott signs off. That clause effectively fuses Texas’s licensing power to the DOJ’s post-Barbara enforcement push, giving federal prosecutors a state-level enforcement arm inside every labor and delivery unit in Texas.
The order takes effect immediately and stays in force until Abbott rescinds or amends it.
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Insanity lives in Texas, where the leaders are mentally bankrupt!