JULY 4, 2026
Legal immigrant and Virginia business owner says birth tourism undermines those who followed the immigration process
Kris Ramsingh, a legal immigrant from Trinidad and Virginia business owner, told Fox News Digital that birth tourism and illegal immigration are a "slap in the face" to immigrants who came to the United States through the legal process. Ramsingh immigrated to the United States in 2006 and became a citizen in 2015 after satisfying federal immigration requirements including proof of vaccines, personal documentation, a criminal background check, and proof of financial means. He founded Dominion Custom Upholstery in Roanoke, Virginia, and later launched additional businesses and a missionary organization.
Kris Ramsingh, who arrived in the United States from Trinidad in 2006 with $300 and a few suitcases, described his nearly decade-long path to citizenship as the framework through which he evaluates current U.S. immigration policy. Speaking to Fox News Digital in an interview published around the Fourth of July, Ramsingh said the legal process required him to meet a series of federal requirements before he was granted citizenship in 2015.
Ramsingh said he views birth tourism — the practice of traveling to the United States to give birth so that a child acquires U.S. citizenship — and unauthorized border crossings as undermining the system he navigated. "When you see that people come across the border, whether it's [to] have a baby for an anchor, or come across the border and get free healthcare, [or] free school, it's really a slap in the face to the people who have worked really hard to come into this country the legal way," he said.
On the question of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement, Ramsingh said he does not view the president as anti-immigrant. "He's not anti-immigrant. Republicans are not anti-immigrant — we just want them to go through the process of doing it legally," he said. He described the border situation under the Biden administration as "an invasion" rather than immigration, while also acknowledging that some individual deportation cases are "difficult to watch," attributing those situations to years of what he described as lax enforcement of immigration law.