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Do Women Come to the US To Have “Anchor Babies?”

Posted September 27, 2010 by David Sperling, Esq.

In “The Answer Man” series, David Sperling, Esq., fields reader questions about immigration law.

Question
I’m not an immigrant (at least not a recent immigrant: my family came here three generations ago). I don’t get this controversy about “anchor babies.” Do illegal immigrants come here to have babies so they can get legal status themselves?

Answer
You can bet that anyone who talks about “anchor babies” does not like immigrants. Just like anyone who talks about “death panels” is against universal health coverage.

There are lots of reasons why undocumented immigrants come to the United States. On Long Island, the first big wave of Central American immigrants were refugees from the guerrilla wars of the 1980s and early 1990s. Many others came later to join family members, to escape the grinding poverty in their homelands, and to create a better future for their families. Many come these days not only for economic reasons, but also to flee the pervasive gang violence in their home countries,

In my 16 years as an immigration lawyer, I have yet to meet one woman who risked her life to come to the US for purpose of giving birth to a child so that she could get a green card.

That’s because the “anchor baby” concept is largely a myth. It is certainly true that children born in the US, no matter the status of their parents, are US citizens. It has been that way for nearly 150 years, enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

But to petition for a parent’s green card, a US citizen child must be at least 21 years old. Even then, the parents would not qualify if she or he entered the country illegally, then the only option would be consular processing. That could take an additional ten years if the parents were in the United States unlawfully before returning home. So no mother is coming to US to deliver an “anchor baby” that would make her eligible for a green card in 31 years.

There is, of course, an element of truth to the assertion that US citizen children will help parents from getting deported. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will sometimes “defer action” on the deportation of an unauthorized-immigrant mother with young US citizen children. And unauthorized immigrants who have lived here for more than 10 years have a long shot of winning “cancellation of removal” and a green card if they can prove to an immigration judge that their deportation would result in “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to their citizen children.

Rallying around the alleged threat of “anchor babies,” some nativists are now trying to deny birthright citizenship to children of immigrants. It may be a popular message in some parts of the country, but it will never happen because the Constitution requires three-fourths of states (38 states) to expressly revoke an amendment after a constitutional convention.

Plus, it’s a bad idea to increase the number of illegal immigrants in US, especially those who would speak English as their native language and are guaranteed the right of free public education as result of the 1982 Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe.

We would be condemning a whole generation to a life without hope. Children of immigrants assimilate quickly into the mainstream and have much to contribute to country.

Birthright citizen is part of our nation’s history, and should also be part of its future.

Image courtesy of Magpie372 via Flickr.

Tags : 14th amendment, anchor babies, answer man, constitution