Anchors Away!

Steve Hampton, of Protect Our Border, wrote an email to the Coalition Against Illegal Immigration's Yahoo group, in which he addresses the issue of anchor babies:

If you look at how the text is written concerning Anchor Babies, it seems quite clear that Anchor Babies ( Babies born from ILLEGAL immigrants ) do NOT LEGALLY get Citizenship. The flaw is clearly written that they are NOT to become citizen. If you think its NOT a major major problem in the USA. You should know that 10% of the USA current birth rate is to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.

Contact your major groups and suggest a law suit to STOP ANCHOR baby Laws. This is a clear ABUSE of the 14th Amendment. Throw OUT of OFFICE ANY Politician reguardless of Party that defends "Anchor Baby" VIOLATIONS and Abuse of the 14th Amendment. Currently the USA is giving FULL Citizenship rights to babies born from ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, just because they were able to cross into the USA ILLEGALLY to have their baby.

I think he has a point. I've posted in the past about the need to clarify the status of "native-born" to mean any person who has an American parent, or who parents have a legal right to be in the US. I'm even willing to extend citizenship to legal, temporary residents, such as children of students, provided the parents leave once the visa expires, but NOT to visitors on a visa. Presumably, they have a home country, which the child will be a citizen of.

Why make a big issue out of this? Haven't we always given citizenship rather freely? Well, yes - and no. We have never had this large a flood of illegal aliens in our country. Before, if you came in without permission and were caught, you were treated like what you were - a criminal. It's clear that many are having children deliberately to obtain citizenship for that child, and, by extension, for the parents.

From the Center for Immigration Studies:

in 2002 almost one in four births in the United States was to an immigrant mother (legal or illegal), the highest level in American history. In addition, nearly ten percent of all births in the country were to illegal-alien mothers. This is important for at least two reasons: first, it is currently U.S. government policy to award American citizenship to all persons born on U.S. soil, even the children of tourists and illegal aliens. In addition, the number and share of children born to immigrants is now so large that it may overwhelm the assimilation process.

The new report, “Births to Immigrants in America, 1970-2002,” by the Center’s Director of Research, Steven A. Camarota, is on line at http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back805.html.

Among the findings:

• In 2002, 23 percent of all births in the United States were to immigrant mothers (legal or illegal), compared to 15 percent in 1990, 9 percent in 1980 and 6 percent in 1970.

• Even at the peak of the last great wave of immigration in 1910, the share of births to immigrant mothers did not reach the level of today. And after 1910 immigration was reduced, whereas current immigration continues at record levels, thus births to immigrants will continue to increase.

• Our best estimate is that 383,000, or 42 percent, of births to immigrants are to illegal alien mothers. Thus births to illegals now account for nearly 1 out of every 10 births in the United States.

• The large number of births to illegals shows that the longer illegal immigration is allowed to persist the harder it is to solve, because these U.S. citizen children can stay permanently, their citizenship can prevent a parent’s deportation, and once adults, they can sponsor their parents for permanent residence.

• The issue of births to illegals also shows that a “temporary” worker program would inevitably result in the permanent addition of hundreds of thousands of people to the U.S. population each year, exactly what such a program is supposed to avoid.

• The dramatic growth in births to immigrants has been accompanied by a significant decline in diversity. The top country for immigrant births C Mexico C increased from 24 percent of births to immigrants in 1970 to 45 percent in 2002.

Every Mexican that is allowed to flout the law and get in without permission is one less LEGAL immigrant from another country, who has to wait longer to get their chance to come to the US.

Folks, it's a zero-sum game. More illegals, fewer legals. Should we reward the law-breakers, or the law-respecters?