As immigration reform has received renewed attention, there is a growing debate regarding anchor babies. Anchor baby is a term describing children that are born in the U.S. to illegal aliens. Anchor baby implies that illegal aliens can “anchor” themselves in the US.
A baby born in the US is automatically conferred U.S. citizenship under the 14th amendment. This amendment, ratified in 1868, was designed to prevent any State from denying citizenship to any freed slaves, or their children. In order to eliminate this benefit, there would likely need to be a constitutional amendment which is a difficult process.
The term anchor baby is a bit of a misnomer. A US citizen child cannot file for a US visa for its parents until the child is 21 years of age. Parents of anchor babies living in the US illegally can still be deported as illegal aliens and are usually barred from Immigration. According to Politifact, "Only 4,000 unauthorized immigrants can receive such status per year, and the alien has to have been in the U.S. for at least 10 years."
Proponents of reform in this area overstate the problem by assuming illegal aliens are coming to the US specifically to have a baby. In fact there are several categories of aliens having babies in the US: illegal aliens crossing the border to give birth, illegal aliens already living in the U.S. then happening to have a baby, and people that obtain tourist visas to give birth which is often referred to as “birth tourism”.
Birth tourism is not illegal since it is not a crime to travel to the United States to give birth so that the child can have U.S. citizenship. There is mixed evidence of whether there are large numbers of illegal aliens crossing the border to give birth.
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