70 Protest Alleged ‘Maternal Hotel’ in Chino Hills

Some 70 people picketed a busy city intersection on Saturday protesting what they say is an illegal Chinese maternity operation.

Brightly colored signs reading “Not in Chino Hills” and “No Birth Tourism” decorated the intersection of Peyton Avenue and Chino Hills Parkway for more than two hours.

It was the first protest by the group Not In Chino Hills, which was organized just two weeks ago.

“Chino Hills is a nice family oriented town. We don’t want a maternal hotel that is a business in a residential area,” said Rossana.

“And there’s the moral issue,” said Mitchell, a 22-year resident of the city.

“My father came to this country from Peru and left us all (eight children) until he earned enough money to get us visas to come here legally, said Mitchell, who became a U.S. citizen at age 17.

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What the picketers say is morally wrong about the “maternity motel” is that children born there have dual citizenship and at age 21 can use that to bring family members in the country.

Calls to the three numbers posted on a fence leading up to the hilltop house, which some call a mansion, resulted in the phone on the other end being hung up.

City officials are dealing with code enforcement issues, but not with the alleged illegal maternity operation, Mayor Art Bennett has said.

Karol Arredondo, one of the protesters and a 16-year resident of Chino Hills, said that she has noticed many pregnant Chinese women walking around an apartment complex down a hill from where the alleged maternity hotel is located.

Every so often, a tour bus comes and takes them to Southern California tourist destinations, such as Disneyland and Venice Beach, she said.

Bennett said that code enforcement investigators found out that rooms in the hilltop house, at 15250 Woodglen Drive, have been rented out as motel rooms to bring in Chinese expectant mothers until they deliver a child.

Substantial fees are charged, he said.

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Protester Sandy Hayden said that the hilltop house is producing people who will “infiltrate our country.”

The children born there will grow up in China and return to the United States to attend college, taking precious college slots away from U.S citizens, she said.

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