'Way ahead of India': Kotak's Nilesh Shah reacts to Chinese couples using US surrogacy loophole

Kotak Mutual Fund Managing Director Nilesh Shah on Monday reacted to a US media report exposing a surrogacy trend involving Chinese couples. Responding to a Fox News report on social media, Shah wrote: “Very surprising that Indians haven’t discovered it. It will be cheaper than EB5 for sure. Proves China is way ahead of India in cost-effective solutions.”

Shah's comment came after a Fox News segment claimed that Chinese couples were using a legal workaround to obtain American citizenship for their children through surrogacy in the US. The report alleged that expectant surrogate mothers — hired by Chinese clients—were staying in motels across California to give birth on US soil.

“Chinese couples are hiring American surrogates and having them give birth to their kids in America. Then the Chinese couple comes over after the birth and takes the kid back to China with a US passport,” the outlet reported.

The report said this has happened “tens of thousands of times across the United States.” Fox News noted that the practice is not technically illegal, describing it as a “loophole.”

“This is actually one of the motels (see video) that we went into where some of the pregnant women stay. Basically with the rent-a-wombs, you’ve got these parents in China who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, it’s happening thousands of times,” the report stated.

“They pay a woman in America, they have the sperm and the egg from China inside of them. They use the American womb. The American woman gives birth to the Chinese baby and then the baby gets the U.S. passport but immediately goes back to China with no allegiance whatsoever to America but is an American citizen.”