Children are not products. Arcadia demands limits on surrogacy
At an October 16 bail hearing, prosecutors described children kept indoors for years, sharpening the case for Congress to put child safeguards ahead of commercial surrogacy.
Family Brief opposes legalizing commercial surrogacy: the Arcadia allegations show how the market can put adults’ demand for children ahead of children’s safety and family bonds. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced charges on October 6, 2026, against Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang for the alleged abuse of at least 14 surrogate-born children, some as young as two months old. At the October 16 bail hearing, Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Teymouri told the judge that the couple kept more than 20 children inside the Arcadia mansion for years and almost never let them see sunlight. After authorities took the children into custody in 2025, Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Teymouri told the Pasadena judge they were “scared to go to the park because they hadn’t been outside.” The New York Post’s X account posted on October 17, 2026: “Chilling new details emerge in case of California 'house of horrors' where wealthy couple farmed 21 children.”
Teymouri described that childhood: "They didn’t go to school outside the home. They didn’t go to playgrounds. They didn’t go to restaurants1." Courthouse News reported that five surrogate mothers sued Xuan and Zhang, alleging fraud, negligence and nonconsensual use of reproductive material.
“scared to go to the park because they hadn’t been outside”
A spreadsheet stood in for their names
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office says the pair ran their own surrogacy company and allegedly made false statements to at least two women who became surrogates2. Prosecutors say the couple had 21 children, 19 of them through surrogates, raised in the Arcadia home with six live-in nannies3.
When investigators interviewed Xuan, Teymouri said, he could not recall all of his children's names and "had to pull out a spreadsheet" to do so3. Pamela DeCamp of the Virginia Legal Aid Society told CBS News that her client, a surrogate, "was led to believe that this was a couple who had one child and wanted to have one more4."
The orders kept coming after the raid: CBS News reports at least five more surrogate-born babies in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia, all taken into state custody. When two Virginia surrogates cut off contact and refused to hand over their newborns, the couple sued for custody and $1 million from each woman4. Their contracts had been for $70,000 and $45,000.
Warnings came before the children were removed
The District Attorney's Office says that over 11 days, April 27 to May 7, 2025, some of the nannies were caught on video spanking, slapping or hitting the children. More than 30 cameras watched the home, the DA says, but one room had none, and the children taken inside could be heard screaming2. "The screams — I had to watch the video on mute," Teymouri told the judge3.
The DA says one person is accused of hitting a two-month-old boy on May 4, and Xuan and Zhang allegedly waited two days before seeking medical care. They then told medical staff the baby had fallen from a bed2.
The warnings came long before that. The Los Angeles Times reports that Zhang was charged with child abuse in 2019 for leaving her daughter in a hot car, then fled to China. The Los Angeles Times reports that the county Department of Children and Family Services received referrals involving Xuan and Zhang seven times between 2019 and 2025 and did not take the children out of the home until last year1. Police records also include an anonymous 2024 call alleging child abuse at the mansion. Seven referrals, and the children stayed inside.
The allegations reach beyond the nannies
Both defendants have pleaded not guilty1. Xuan's attorney, Mitchell Krems, called the charges "patently false" and said the abuse was "all the nannies’ doing3."
The DA's account puts the couple in the room. On April 30, 2025, the DA says, Xuan entered a classroom and allegedly told a nanny to strike a child harder. Teymouri described video of Xuan walking through a room where children slept in rows, sweeping a flashlight over them, and she alleged he hit a child who woke up1. The DA says Xuan and Zhang also allegedly told some children to deny the nannies had beaten them, putting the couple’s own conduct at the center of the case. Zhang is accused of instructing a nanny to hide the sticks used to strike the children2.
Who decided to wait two days before getting a two-month-old to a doctor? Judge Caroline Lugo left bail at $20 million each, citing possible efforts to conceal or destroy evidence and Xuan's four passports3.
Congress should put child safeguards first
On Nov. 4, 2025, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida introduced S. 3101, the SAFE KIDS Act, and the Senate referred it to the Judiciary Committee. Its findings name Arcadia, warning that "recent events in Arcadia, California reveal that surrogacy is even being used to facilitate human trafficking5."
If this great American experiment is to continue, we must once again put the family first.
The bill is narrow by design. Under section 4, a surrogacy agreement would be void and unenforceable if the surrogate is in the United States at birth or is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, and a prospective parent is a citizen or permanent resident of a listed foreign nation. A broker who knowingly or recklessly facilitates a voided agreement could face a fine, up to a year in prison, or both. Custody of a child born under a voided agreement would be decided under the law of the surrogate's state on the child's best interests, "with no effect given to the surrogacy agreement5."
That last clause is the principle Congress should carry further: a child's welfare outranks any contract to produce him. The Senate Judiciary Committee should hold a hearing on S. 3101 and move it, and lawmakers should build on it with oversight of brokers, honest disclosure to surrogates, and a duty to act on child-welfare warnings. Ask your senators three questions that need a yes or no: will you move S. 3101, will you write child-first custody rules into every surrogacy law, and will you require agencies to act on abuse referrals before a seventh one comes in1?
Sources
- Arcadia surrogacy mansion mom previously fled U.S., prosecutors allege - Los Angeles Times
- Pair Charged With Conspiracy, Abusing Surrogate-Born Children in Arcadia Mansion | Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
- Judge denies bail reduction for Chinese couple accused of abusing their 21 children | Courthouse News Service
- Their 21 kids were taken by the state. Now they're fighting for custody of even more surrogate-born babies. - CBS News
- Congressional Bills 119th Congress From the U.S. Government Publishing Office S. 3101 Introduced in Senate (IS)
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