LOS ANGELES _ At 10 a.m. on a cold morning in April at Whittier Medical Center, Sophia was born.
She was a healthy baby girl at 7 pounds and 1 ounce, with a future in America to look forward to, if she chose it.
Her mother, Tracy, came from Shanghai to give her this choice _ a chance at the world's best education, a safe childhood and reliable medical care without long lines.
"I'm here to give my kids better options," said Tracy, who asked to be referred to by her first name because she has read stories about U.S. officials cracking down on mothers who come to America to give birth.
Even as middle-class incomes in China enjoy explosive growth, and 96 percent of Chinese people in a recent Pew Research poll say their lives are better than their parents', an unknown number of "birth tourists" like Tracy cross oceans each year to have their babies in America.
And in America's Chinese enclaves, they find a cottage industry of Chinese midwives, drivers and doctors who accept cash and "maternity hotels" _ apartments or homes run as hotels for the women during their pregnancies.
Chinese listing sites show several hundred maternity hotels in Southern California, though it's not clear how many of the listings are active.
Anyone who lies about the purpose of their visit to the U.S. can be charged with visa fraud, but birth tourism per se is not illegal.
"There is nothing in the law that makes it illegal for pregnant women to enter the United States," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Critics, however, blast the practice as a way to gain citizenship for children by unfairly gaming the immigration system. And spurred in part by those complaints, U.S. officials at every level are exploring ways to crack down on maternity hotels.
That the practice persists, birth tourists say, is a testament to the hold that America still has on Chinese imaginations.
Restrictive family planning policies may have driven some Chinese mothers to give birth in America before 2015, when the one-child policy ended. But many others are simply curious about America and exploring the possibility of a life in the U.S., said Kelly, a birth tourist who has settled in Riverside County's Eastvale neighborhood.
"China has developed very quickly," said Kelly, who also declined to provide her first name. "But ... Chinese people still have this perception of America as a dream place to live, that it is bigger, better, stronger."
