The screeds about "anchor babies" in the media reflect the scale of the paranoia about a foreign invasion destroying America from within. Implicit in the idea of the "dropped" baby is the notion that simply being born in America doesn't make you any less of a foreigner, and that these children of immigrants actually belong back in their parents' country of origin.
While the alienation of immigrants has become a self-fulfilling prophecy of ever-deepening segregation, the dispute about which children "belong" here should be answered simply by asking, what else would a kid born and raised in America be, other than American?
Latino America, a reporting project based at Arizona State University, looks at the consequences for American-born children who are forced to return to Mexico. (h/t Immigration Prof)
Consider the family of Margaret Acuitlapa, a U.S. citizen who moved with her three children to Mexico to follow her deported husband:
"The first year we were here, we were treated as strangers," Acuitlapa said of her family's arrival in Malinalco, a small town in southwestern Mexico. "Things were unpleasant for all of us."...Although she moved to keep her family together, the life they have faced in Mexico has put different strains on her marriage, and her children.
"Our kids didn't speak any Spanish when we moved here. Even now, my 10-year-old daughter is reading at a second-grade level," she said of the struggles her children have faced in school. "My 15-year-old son is still having a hard time with everything."
An older youth imagines life as another kind of "alien":
Kendrick Nunez, 18, is one of those citizen children who would be affected if the "anchor baby" bill became law. He and his citizen sister currently live in Arkansas without their parents, who were deported to Mexico. He finds the logic of the movement confusing.
"That seems unreasonable. What, you're just born in the air?" Nunez says. "I recognize there is a problem, but there has to be a better solution."Nunez and his younger sister initially followed their parents and other siblings to Mexico but returned to the United States so they could continue studying within the American education system.
"I didn't go to school when I was in Mexico. I spent my time working -- in a car wash, a water park, a field," Nunez said. "I was illegal there. All my best friends in Arkansas were graduating. I felt like I was missing out on something."
It's like a reverse mirror image of the undocumented experience in the U.S.: the cultural alienation, low-wage jobs preempting opportunities for education. Nunez, the "anchor baby" whom many immigration restrictionists want to "send home" to Mexico, finds himself "illegal" on that side of the border.
The experience is repeated over and over again for deportees who find themselves not just separated from loved ones, but alienated and often demonized once repatriated. The redemption story of Qing Hong Wu--a former delinquent who was saved from deportation by the state at the last minute--is the rare exception that underscores the rule.
The assumption behind the "anchor baby" myth is that birthright citizenship is not natural, that an immigrant mother's connection to her progeny is merely through her womb, as opposed to the nurturing, labor and aspirations she's poured into her child on American soil. Yet the dehumanizing language betrays a cruelly determinist concept of parenthood, because the one "American" inheritance that the mother passes onto the baby is the violation of a draconian immigration law.
We accept the term "naturalization" to describe the process of the foreign-born taking on a new citizenship. What could be more natural than being accepted as a citizen of the only home you've ever known?
Cross-posted from Colorlines.
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Ending Birthright Citizenship Could Halve Pace Of GOP Drift To Demographic ...
First Anchor babies and now, Terror babies
Terror babies, anchor babies and Beanie Babies. Oh my!
The Immigration Debate: Dispelling Myths About 'Anchor Babies'
Hell, if they are Mexican, they love Mexico more than the US in any case and are only here for the benefits and can care less about the USA. They need to go back where their loyalty lies.
It was created to address the problems of the lack of citizenship and human status of American slaves. It was never meant to grant citizenship to anyone whose mother could make it here for them to be born. In 1868 it was months and a chance. In 2010 it is a couple hours jet ride and a certainty.
Visiting rich foriegners give their children a big gift with it and the children are never here.
Illegal immigrants hope to use it to create an excuse why they should stay here without permission.
It was not meant to benefit foriegn nations and their people, but they seek to use it against us that way.
The Fourteenth Amendment needs to go before the Supreme Court for some more fine tuning al la Wang Vs. Arkanasas.
In it's present state it can give us a population who's parents believe our laws are made to be broken or a pack of future citizen leaders who have never set foot here. Or both.
Neither would be particulary desirable.
We are spending BILLIONS of tax dollars on ILLEGAL ALIENS and they are taking jobs that CITIZENS and LEGAL immigrants want and NEED. We need to HEAVILY fine those who hire ILLEGALS so that the jobs for them would dry up and they would self-deport taking their children with them.
The so called anchor babies are citizens of their parents country as well as the US. So there is always a place for them to go. I am not in favor of stopping US birth citizenship, but I am in favor of stopping the practice of dual citizenship. I think that a Constitutional amendment is needed to prohibit ANY US citizen from having another citizenship other than US. The child would be forced to choose which country he/she wishes to have as theirs when they reach age 18.
I am tired of dual nationals having more rights and privileges than most Americans. It will also make sure that they only get to have ONE vote in this world in national elections.
But they want it all
In order for the social security office to determine eligibility they need to know how much income there is in the family. If it were us, they would right away check our income through our taxes.
Guess what? The parents have no social so the social security office has no choice but, I am not making this up, will accept a note from someone saying they employ them and go by whatever amount the note states. They can put that they make only $100 a month.
How can it be verified? Its impossible, since there is no social to check and they will say they get paid in cash.
We are talking benefits that can run up to $300 or more, depending on size of one family. Times that by many and you get the picture.
Meanwhile not much left for the rest of us. I don’t know what the answer is, but giving this automatic social security really encourages them to have more and more kids.
Before the hate mail starts let me say that I am a legal immigrant. I love this country and my parents started paying taxes from the get go.
If you come into this country illegally as the majority of them have, THEY ARE CRIMINALS since that is a crime. That does not include all the other crimes that they commit such as ID theft, perjury, fraud, forgery, driving without a license, failing to register with the Selective Service if they are male which is a FELONY,, so tell me how law abiding are the illegals?
It is a strange world we live in where those of us who sacrifice and follow all of the rules are often treated more onerously than those who have violated our laws and skipped to the front of the immigration line.