House Oversight Chairman James Comer has subpoenaed the founder of a South Florida company called "Have My Baby in Miami", a business that openly marketed U.S. citizenship to pregnant foreign nationals.
Comer, a Kentucky Republican, sent the subpoena to Dr. Wladimir Lorentz on Tuesday after Lorentz's attorney refused to make him available for voluntary testimony. The attorney cited a pending criminal probe by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida as the reason Lorentz could not cooperate with the committee.
Comer was unmoved. The subpoena orders Lorentz to appear at a September 1 congressional hearing on birth tourism, and the chairman's letter made clear that a federal investigation does not excuse a witness from answering to Congress.
In the subpoena letter, Comer identified Lorentz as the "Founder and Chief Medical Officer" of Have My Baby in Miami and framed his knowledge as central to the committee's work. Fox News Digital reported on the subpoena and the broader hearing plans.
"As the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of a company doing business as 'Have My Baby in Miami,' your knowledge regarding the company's marketing practices and direct observations relevant to the birth tourism industry is vital to the immediate investigation."
Comer also rejected the idea of waiting until the criminal probe concludes, whenever that might be.
"Furthermore, given the national security concerns raised by birth tourism, delaying the hearing or deferring your testimony to some unknown date in the (potentially far) future would be an extraordinary action that would curtail the Committee's ability to glean valuable information that will inform its oversight and further its legislative goals."
Whether Lorentz will comply remains unclear. Defying a congressional subpoena can carry criminal penalties.
Have My Baby in Miami operated as exactly what its name suggests. The company helped foreign nationals travel to South Florida, live there during pregnancy, and deliver babies on U.S. soil, securing American citizenship for the newborns under the Fourteenth Amendment's birthright provisions.
A YouTube page that appears to be associated with the business laid out the pitch in plain language: "Many people have questions about how to have a child in the United States, and we can help clarify how to deliver in Miami, how to live in the United States during your pregnancy, how to have a baby in the United States, how much it costs to deliver in the United States and how to go through pregnancy in the United States."
The page also noted that "children who are born in the United States, with rare exceptions, have US citizenship." That is the entire business model in one sentence.
A Florida outlet, Local 10, published a report in October 2025 that obtained information from now-deleted Have My Baby in Miami pages. Those pages reportedly claimed the company had helped deliver 2,000 babies. By Thursday, the company's website and social media pages appeared to be disabled.
Rep. Brandon Gill, a Texas Republican who leads a House Oversight task force on investigating institutional abuses, is driving the September 1 hearing. His task force, founded this year, has already held hearings on diversity, equity, and inclusion practices at the Smithsonian Institution and the American Bar Association. Birth tourism is its next target.
Gill framed the issue in national security terms, pointing to the countries sending the most birth tourists to the United States:
"A growing industry is openly marketing American citizenship to foreign nationals who travel here for the express purpose of giving birth on U.S. soil. This abuse of our immigration system also raises serious national security concerns, particularly given the number of birth tourists traveling from adversarial nations like China and Russia."
That concern is straightforward. A child born in Miami to parents from Beijing or Moscow holds an American passport. That passport grants visa-free travel, access to U.S. institutions, and, eventually, the ability to sponsor family members for immigration. When the parents' home governments are strategic adversaries, the security implications are not theoretical.
Lorentz is not the only figure the committee wants to hear from. Dr. Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that studies immigration policy, is expected to testify. Dr. Julio César Novoa, the medical director and owner of International Maternity Services, has also been invited.
The inclusion of Novoa suggests the committee views birth tourism as an industry problem, not just one rogue operator in South Florida. International Maternity Services' specific connection to birth tourism practices has not been detailed publicly, but Novoa's invitation signals the committee intends to examine the broader market.
The congressional push comes alongside executive action. President Trump targeted birth tourism in a recent executive order after the Supreme Court struck down his broader efforts to curb birthright citizenship. The order banned specific categories of children, including those born to foreign government workers, from automatically receiving U.S. citizenship.
The White House sounded the alarm on birth tourism this month, aligning the executive and legislative branches on the issue. The combination of a presidential executive order and a congressional subpoena represents a two-front effort to crack down on an industry that has operated largely in the open.
And "in the open" is no exaggeration. Have My Baby in Miami did not hide what it was doing. The company's name was the marketing strategy. Its YouTube page explained, step by step, how to come to the United States, live here during a pregnancy, and deliver a baby who would hold American citizenship. The business was not operating in a gray area, it was advertising the gray area as a feature.
Fox News Digital reached out to Lorentz's lawyer for comment on the subpoena. No response has been reported. The attorney had previously told the committee that Lorentz could not cooperate because of the pending federal criminal probe in the Southern District of Florida.
The nature and current status of that probe remain unclear. Federal prosecutors have not publicly detailed the allegations, and Lorentz himself has not spoken publicly about the investigation or the subpoena.
Meanwhile, the company's digital footprint is vanishing. The website is down. Social media pages are disabled. Only the YouTube page, with its cheerful instructions on how to deliver a baby in Miami and secure U.S. citizenship, appeared to remain accessible.
Several questions remain unanswered heading into the September 1 hearing. Will Lorentz show up, or will he force the committee to pursue contempt? How many of the 2,000 babies the company reportedly helped deliver were born to parents from adversarial nations? And how many other operations just like this one are still running in South Florida and beyond?
When a business can operate for years under a name that literally advertises the sale of American citizenship, the failure is not just one doctor's, it belongs to every institution that looked the other way.
