Denison, Texas — Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday directed the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to open an immediate investigation of Mission Regional Medical Center, a South Texas hospital that state officials say marketed "birth packages" to foreign nationals seeking to give birth in the United States. The governor said the practice, known as birth tourism, exploits the country's hospitality and citizenship laws.
Denison, a city in Grayson County in North Texas, sits near the Oklahoma border and is part of a region whose hospitals and clinics operate under the same state health regulators overseeing facilities statewide.
"Birth tourism is an illegal practice that exploits the extraordinary hospitality that the United States and Texas offer to millions of foreign travelers each year," said Governor Abbott.
