The airline caused the passenger to take a pregnancy test before flying on American island

Hong Kong airline apologized once demanded that the passenger undergo a pregnancy test before boarding the flight to the Pacific island of Saipan, a us territory.

The low-cost carrier Hong Kong Express was criticized after the 25-year-old Japanese woman was told that the airline staff demanded that she passed the evaluation of «fit to fly», including a pregnancy test when she checked in for the flight at Hong Kong airport.

«It was very humiliating», she said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, adding that the airline indicated that the test required the women «body shape which resembled pregnant».

According to the Japanese, the airline staff took her to the bathroom and handed the pregnancy test, forbidding her landing on the Board until it shows results.

«We would like to apologize for the incident. We took these actions on flights to Saipan from February 2019 to avoid undermining the immigration laws of the United States, — is spoken in the message of the airline. — We acknowledge the significant problems caused by this practice. We immediately stopped the check while revising this policy.»

Saipan, part of the American Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands became a favorite place for «tribal tourism» — the practice of foreign women giving birth in the U.S. so their babies become U.S. citizens.

This is largely due to a special immigration policy of the island, which allows citizens of certain countries to visit Saipan without a visa.

In recent years, birth tourism has become so widespread in the Commonwealth of tourists children born more than permanent residents of the Islands.

In 2018 the tourist 582 gave birth to a child (almost all tourists from China), and residents – only 492. The population of the Northern Mariana Islands is just over 50,000, according to the U.S. census, 2018.

The popularity of «generic» tourism on Saipan prompted the authorities to take measures, for example, to exert pressure on airlines to check passengers. In July, the House of representatives of the Commonwealth also adopted a resolution on limiting citizenship by birth on the Islands.

The legal principle of jus soli automatically grants citizenship to children born on U.S. soil. Although Federal law does not prohibit pregnant tourists to enter the United States, multiple times authorities have arrested individuals who organized such «tours» by prior conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and visa fraud.

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