When I read the
headline “Jeb Bush: Asians abusing US birthright citizenship,” I passed over it because I thought he
was simply trying to take Americans’ attention off the illegal immigrants
entering the United States through the porous southern border. Bush has clashed with other presidential
candidates over the term “anchor babies,” believing it is a “derogatory
description of children born in the United States to undocumented parents.”
Bush was recently in Texas along
the southern border and was questioned about whether or not his campaign would
suffer with Hispanics over his use of the term “anchor babies.” He replied, “What I was talking about was the
specific case of fraud being committed where there’s organized efforts – and frankly
it’s more related to Asian people coming into our country, having children in
that organized effort, taking advantage of a noble concept with birthright
citizenship.”
Bush does not believe he is
using a derogatory term with the use of “anchor babies – the practice of people
coming to the United States to have children born on United States soil and
thus gaining citizenship. This is why he
spoke of immigrants other than Hispanics having “anchor babies.”
Today I began reading articles
about some of the other immigrants coming to America for the blessings of
having a baby born on US soil. This is an article about a couple from China that made the trip and paid $35,000 in order for
their second child to be born in the United States to enhance its chances for
education and other blessings not available in China. Their child was one of thousands born here as
estimates of Chinese tourists giving birth here range from 10,000 to 60,000 per
year.
Donald Trump appears to be
correct when he says that our Fourteenth Amendment is a magnet for “anchor
babies.” This article is about the “very real economic costs of birthright citizenship.” “According to Center for Immigration
Studies (CIS) legal policy analyst Jon Feere, who testified before the House
Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security in April,
between 350,000 and 400,000 children are born annually to an illegal-alien
mother residing in the United States – as many as one in ten births
nationwide. As of 2010, four out of five
children of illegal aliens residing in the U.S. were born here – some 4 million
kids. Reporting that finding, the Pew
Research Center noted that, while illegal immigrants make up about 4 percent of
the adult population, `because they have high birthrates, their children make
up a much larger share of both the newborn population (8 percent) and the child
population (7 percent) in this country.
“The cost of this is not
negligible. Inflation-adjusted figures
from the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that a child born in 2013
would cost his parents $304,480 from birth to his eighteenth birthday. Given that illegal-alien households are
normally low-income households (three out of five illegal aliens and their
U.S.-born children live at or near the poverty line), one would expect that a
significant portion of that cost will fall on the government. And that’s exactly what’s happening. According to CIS, 71 percent of illegal-alien
headed households with children received some sort of welfare in 2009, compared
with 39 percent of native-headed houses with children. Illegal immigrants generally access welfare
programs through their U.S.-born children, to whom government assistance is
guaranteed. Additionally, U.S.-born
children of illegal aliens are entitled to American public schools, health
care, and more….
“There are long-term costs,
too. U.S.-born children of illegal
aliens can sponsor the immigration of family members once they come of
age. At 18, an `anchor baby’ can sponsor
an overseas spouse and unmarried children of his own; at 21, he can sponsor
parents and siblings. There may be a
long waiting period before that legal benefit is of use. But it’s a fact that illegal aliens with
American-born children are much less likely to be deported, and that policy has
been effectively enshrined in law with President Obama’s Deferred Action for
Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) policy, which would effectively
grant amnesty to some 5 million illegal aliens, on top of the 2 to 3 million
granted amnesty under his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
policy. (DAPA is currently under
scrutiny in the courts.)”
We can see from just these
articles that birthright citizenship is a problem, and Trump is right about it
being a magnet for illegal immigrants.
Our porous borders and lax enforcement of our immigration laws are
allowing many of the “anchor babies” to be here, and our progressive judges and
leaders on the federal level are allowing them to stay.
The deliberate deception of “anchor
babies” is causing problems in our nation, problems that could be hiding even
larger ones. Americans have been lied to
for so long that many of us believe the lies.
One of the biggest lies is that our Fourteenth Amendment gives
citizenship to any child born in the United States. This is not true. The Fourteenth Amendment begins: “All persons born or naturalized in the
United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside” (emphasis mine).
People who come to the United
States illegally or as tourists are not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof;”
they are subject to the laws of their own nations, whether that be China,
Mexico or wherever. We must continue to
share this truth until it overcomes the lies we are being fed. Knowing the truth of the Fourteen Amendment
can help reduce the numbers of “anchor
babies” in our midst, make jobs available for more Americans, and reduce the
costs of our welfare programs. It makes
sense that our nation should take steps to reduce the numbers of “anchor babies”
in every way we can. The Donald is right
on this one!
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