The Scurrilous Myth of the Anchor Baby

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
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Oct 9, 1999
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It's xenophobic bigotry, energetically supported by outright lies promulgated by Trump and the Republicans. They have no shame, no heart, and zero ethics.

“People have this notion that you have a child in the United States, now you’re a citizen. It’s what people think because it’s the easy way to explain it. So it’s an easy way to make up a myth,” said David Leopold, an immigration attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

It’s true that children born on US soil have been granted citizenship through the 14th amendment to the US constitution, and that a landmark supreme court decision set the precedent for that right to be extended to almost all children of foreigners. But Americans can’t just immediately safeguard their family members from deportation. In fact, a US citizen must be 21 years old before they can sponsor their parents for a green card. They also must be able to financially support their parents.

Now the Trump administration’s new public charge rule targeting low-income immigrants is adding yet another burden.

Parents who were not inspected and admitted into the US face even more obstacles to changing their immigration status: with limited exceptions, they have to go abroad as part of the legalization process and then often aren’t allowed back into the US for 10 years.

Even if parents do get a green card, they have a five-year holding period before they can finally apply for naturalization.

In the end, the so-called “anchor baby” pathway to citizenship is at least a 26-year endeavor, even for those who entered the US legally.


“It’s ludicrous to think that that’s some sort of a tactic that people use to come here, get citizenship, ’cause it just isn’t true,” said Leopold. “It’s a myth, and it’s a specious talking point.”

A talking point that’s popular among anti-immigrant groups, pundits and the Republican party."
 
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glenn1

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In the end, the so-called “anchor baby” pathway to citizenship is at least a 26-year endeavor, even for those who entered the US legally.

“It’s ludicrous to think that that’s some sort of a tactic that people use to come here, get citizenship, ’cause it just isn’t true,” said Leopold. “It’s a myth, and it’s a specious talking point.”

I doubt the parents give a fuck about citizenship for themselves. Giving birth to an "anchor baby" here on U.S. soil basically means it's impossible to deport the parents (since that means deporting their citizen child as well) which is all they care about. Whether the children can "sponsor" the parents is a complete red herring since it's been Democratic policy to "prioritize violent offenders" for deportation (as if ICE can only walk or chew gum at the same time and not both) and we've seen already how the left reacts when we even attempt to separate kids for processing at the border much less deport their parents without the kids. Nice attempt to misdirect to the very least important consideration possible.

The proper answer to the question is for the SCOTUS to fix the precedent and properly rule that children born on U.S. soil aren't citizens unless their parents have legal authorization to be here, otherwise the children have the citizenship of the parents and wherever they're from. And not only for immigration reasons, it's fucking idiotic that a child might be born here unintentionally to an actual tourist or whatnot and that child would have the legal obligation to pay U.S. taxes for the rest of his/her life despite zero ties to the U.S. otherwise.
 
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1prophet

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Aug 17, 2005
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Anchor babies are real and not just from South of the border,

how the parents are dealt with is a different issue and they count on sympathetic bleeding heart liberals to let them stay because of "think of the children", and of course identity politics (the evil heartless white man is breaking up the brown family)

just like they refuse to cooperate with ICE on illegals with multiple felonies and multiple immigration violations

don't expect them to just give up parents of anchor babies to ICE because in their eyes it is no more than a parking ticket at best.

If you really want to fix the immigration problem start putting employers in cages instead of children for immigration violations when they use illegals to bypass all the rules and regulations as well as living wages when they have to hire legal residents and citizens,

you know all those rules and regulations and living wages that liberal democrats like to promote as their supposedly worker friendly party platform in contrast with those worker exploiting evil republicans.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
29,505
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Anchor babies are real and not just from South of the border,

how the parents are dealt with is a different issue and they count on sympathetic bleeding heart liberals to let them stay because of "think of the children", and of course identity politics (the evil heartless white man is breaking up the brown family)

just like they refuse to cooperate with ICE on illegals with multiple felonies and multiple immigration violations

don't expect them to just give up parents of anchor babies to ICE because in their eyes it is no more than a parking ticket at best.

If you really want to fix the immigration problem start putting employers in cages instead of children for immigration violations when they use illegals to bypass all the rules and regulations as well as living wages when they have to hire legal residents and citizens,

you know all those rules and regulations and living wages that liberal democrats like to promote as their supposedly worker friendly party platform in contrast with those worker exploiting evil republicans.

LOL
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
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Anchor babies are real and not just from South of the border,

how the parents are dealt with is a different issue and they count on sympathetic bleeding heart liberals to let them stay because of "think of the children", and of course identity politics (the evil heartless white man is breaking up the brown family)

just like they refuse to cooperate with ICE on illegals with multiple felonies and multiple immigration violations

don't expect them to just give up parents of anchor babies to ICE because in their eyes it is no more than a parking ticket at best.

If you really want to fix the immigration problem start putting employers in cages instead of children for immigration violations when they use illegals to bypass all the rules and regulations as well as living wages when they have to hire legal residents and citizens,

you know all those rules and regulations and living wages that liberal democrats like to promote as their supposedly worker friendly party platform in contrast with those worker exploiting evil republicans.

I don't really blame the families since we've created a no-win situation. It reminds me of the Napster days of peer-shared music. People wanted digital music which the industry refused to allow since they were wedded to their old business model of physical media like CDs, so people broke the rules to get what they wanted. The U.S. and its ridiculously low quotas for legal immigration are like the music industry refusing to allow streaming music and enabling widespread petty lawbreaking (P2P streaming) because of their obstinance. Illegal immigration today is the Napster of yesterday, only the immigration version has been going on for much longer because we continue to act stupid. Hopefully someone comes up with the equivalent of iTunes for the immigration problem - greatly expanded guest worker program perhaps?
 

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
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Wish I owned a drill with that much spin.
BTW. the scurrless myth is absolute fact.
 
Nov 29, 2006
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I always thought being granted citizenship based upon where you happened to plop out of your mother was silly. It should automatically be whatever the citizenship of the parents is. IMO.
 

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
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Wish I owned a drill with that much spin.
BTW. the scurrless [sic] myth is absolute fact.
"Spoken" and spelled like the fact averse, dimwit reactionary you are.

Here's a suggestion: Read the fucking article I linked to, and respond factually in kind . . . or STFU with your laughably useless, yet easily predicted, asshole responses.
 

Greenman

Lifer
Oct 15, 1999
22,043
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"Spoken" and spelled like the fact averse, dimwit reactionary you are.

Here's a suggestion: Read the fucking article I linked to, and respond factually in kind . . . or STFU with your laughably useless, yet easily predicted, asshole responses.
Touched a little nerve there did I?
Your responses are every bit as predictable as mine, except you always manage to get a personal insult into the mix. I assume that makes you feel empowered. Another in a long list of things that don't make any sense to me.
 

Commodus

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Oct 9, 2004
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Not to lean too heavily on the appeal to authority, but it is amusing to see the more conservative people attacking an immigration attorney who specializes in this issue for supposedly leading people astray.

It's a complicated situation... but can we at least exhibit some basic humanity here? Even if we take the "anchor baby" claims at face value, many of those families are coming to the US because they're desperate to avoid gang violence, extreme poverty or other dire futures for their families. Few if any of them are trying to ride a gravy train; we should treat them with a baseline level of dignity even if they do ultimately go back.

And remember: the goal of Trump, Tucker Carlson et. al. in using the "anchor baby" dogwhistle is to scapegoat illegal immigrants. They want you to blame brown-skinned newcomers for failures that really come down to a lack of viable legal immigration paths and exploitative companies. To avoid laying the blame at the feet of the people who actually deserve your scorn, like Trump. Instead of attacking the people who risk their lives to come to the US, how about we make it more feasible for them to enter legally and get paid properly?
 
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glenn1

Lifer
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Not to lean too heavily on the appeal to authority, but it is amusing to see the more conservative people attacking an immigration attorney who specializes in this issue for supposedly leading people astray.

It's a complicated situation... but can we at least exhibit some basic humanity here? Even if we take the "anchor baby" claims at face value, many of those families are coming to the US because they're desperate to avoid gang violence, extreme poverty or other dire futures for their families. Few if any of them are trying to ride a gravy train; we should treat them with a baseline level of dignity even if they do ultimately go back.

And remember: the goal of Trump, Tucker Carlson et. al. in using the "anchor baby" dogwhistle is to scapegoat illegal immigrants. They want you to blame brown-skinned newcomers for failures that really come down to a lack of viable legal immigration paths and exploitative companies. To avoid laying the blame at the feet of the people who actually deserve your scorn, like Trump. Instead of attacking the people who risk their lives to come to the US, how about we make it more feasible for them to enter legally and get paid properly?

Even if you don't presume bad faith motives the current situation sucks for those involved and should be fixed via new laws for both clarity and humane treatment either way. I'll disagree that "poverty" should be one of the factors that considers into our immigration policy. I'm also loathe to favor "avoid gang violence" applicants since the very people fleeing are the parents and relatives of those committing the gang violence, if anything we should be arming and training them to take their own countries back.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
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Touched a little nerve there did I?
Your responses are every bit as predictable as mine, except you always manage to get a personal insult into the mix. I assume that makes you feel empowered. Another in a long list of things that don't make any sense to me.
Given your admitted ignorance of many things, any time you respond without facts we just assume you're ignorant and responding based on your feels.
 

Commodus

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Oct 9, 2004
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Even if you don't presume bad faith motives the current situation sucks for those involved and should be fixed via new laws for both clarity and humane treatment either way. I'll disagree that "poverty" should be one of the factors that considers into our immigration policy. I'm also loathe to favor "avoid gang violence" applicants since the very people fleeing are the parents and relatives of those committing the gang violence, if anything we should be arming and training them to take their own countries back.

Aren't many refugee programs meant to court people escaping violence and poverty? We shouldn't have to wait for a country to be war-torn or completely barren before we account for those factors when someone seeks to be an immigrant.

While I like the idea of helping these would-be immigrants take things back, I don't know that it's that simple, or that we should reject those families that can't afford to wait for the situation to (maybe, possibly) get better. And let's face it -- you're unlikely to ever get that solution from the Republicans, since they need those migrants as scapegoats.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
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"Spoken" and spelled like the fact averse, dimwit reactionary you are.

Here's a suggestion: Read the fucking article I linked to, and respond factually in kind . . . or STFU with your laughably useless, yet easily predicted, asshole responses.

@Perknose breaking the no insults rule again. Never change bro.


And yet you keep breaking the no mod callout rule.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director
 
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Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
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Never a surprise to see how conservatives really feel about freedom and the Constitution. Just bring up the 14a and their hatred comes pouring out.
 
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Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
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There’s nothing scurrilous about it. There’s an entire cottage industry in SoCal that caters to pregnant Chinese women looking to have their child in America.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
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There’s nothing scurrilous about it. There’s an entire cottage industry in SoCal that caters to pregnant Chinese women looking to have their child in America.

That's also a scurrilous talking point. It's also true for wealthyy Rusian & Eastern European women in Florida. It's a drop in the bucket. Their intention is not to stay & raise their child here or use them as an anchor. It simply gives the child an option down the road. As Perk points out it might get them a green card 26 years in the future. The truth is that American Citizen children are regularly deported with their undocumented parents who can't bear to leave them behind as wards of the State. Conservatives don't want to feed the little brown rugrats, either, so fuck 'em.
 

Mandres

Senior member
Jun 8, 2011
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I doubt the parents give a fuck about citizenship for themselves. Giving birth to an "anchor baby" here on U.S. soil basically means it's impossible to deport the parents

I'd like to hear the OP's (or the article author's) response to this. If it's true, this point invalidates the entire argument.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
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I'd like to hear the OP's (or the article author's) response to this. If it's true, this point invalidates the entire argument.

It's not true. It's just what conservatives want to believe, so they do.
 

Perknose

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
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I'd like to hear the OP's (or the article author's) response to this. If it's true, this point invalidates the entire argument.
It's not true that it's "it's impossible to deport the parents" Read the fucking article, why don't you?

Too many words? How about you just read and absorb the damn OP then?

Reading entire paragraphs not part of your skill set? Try to sound out the caption on the pretty picture below, k?

1584544097869.png
 

Mandres

Senior member
Jun 8, 2011
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It's not true that it's "it's impossible to deport the parents" Read the fucking article, why don't you?

Too many words? How about you just read and absorb the damn OP then?

Settle down beavis, I wasn't trying to attack you. You have like 15 hyperlinks in your OP so I'm not even sure what article you meant. The quote in your post talked only about granting citizenship, not immunity from deportation. Glenn1 asserted that having a citizen child is a de facto shield against deportation - which I've never heard before and sounds doubtful. Your and Jhhnn's follow up posts, which seem well supported, dispute Glenn's claim. So Glenn1, what say you?
 

JEDIYoda

Lifer
Jul 13, 2005
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Settle down beavis, I wasn't trying to attack you. You have like 15 hyperlinks in your OP so I'm not even sure what article you meant. The quote in your post talked only about granting citizenship, not immunity from deportation. Glenn1 asserted that having a citizen child is a de facto shield against deportation - which I've never heard before and sounds doubtful. Your and Jhhnn's follow up posts, which seem well supported, dispute Glenn's claim. So Glenn1, what say you?
You need to remember that glenn1 uses the virus as an example of why we need tpo close the borders! When it was NOT illegals who brought the virus to America! It was rich white people coming from over seas....so you see where glenn1`s thought process is at.....