Anchor babies
Posted by John Reed on
Pundits who ought to know better are defining anchor babies as babies born to illegal alien couples who come to the U.S. late in their pregnancies for the sole purpose of having a baby to make the baby an American citizen.
Parents often here legally
Some are, but many, maybe most, are born to LEGAL aliens called tourists—tourists who have not yet overstayed their tourist visas. The legal status of the non-U.S.-citizen parents is irrelevant.
If I were a foreigner, from any country, not just Latin America or China, I would deliberately bring my pregnant wife to America late in her pregnancy to avail my child of U.S. citizenship. It would not prevent the child from also being a citizen of the home country.
My wife was born in Indonesia to American expat parents. She was a citizen of both countries until she turned 18 at which time she was told she had to pick one or the other. She picked U.S. Now, because of a Supreme Court decision, you can continue to be a citizen of the U.S. and one or more other countries.
Most countries do not give citizenship just because you were born there
Indeed, anchor babies are only possible in a few countries. You can see a world map of them at https://www.numbersusa.com/…/nations-granting-birthright-ci…. That web page also lists the countries that recently repealed so-called birthright citizenship, like U.K., Australia, New Zealand, France, etc. But to even suggest repelling it here gets you branded as racist or mean or wanting to do the impossible.
Canada and the U.S. are the only developed countries that allow it. Except for Fiji, all the others seem to be in Latin America.. The map shows a couple in Asia, but those are not in the list at that web site.This other web site lists Pakistan and some others not on the first web site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli. The vast majority of countries in the world do NOT allow birthright citizenship and never have.
Some poor babies have been offended by the term ‘anchor babies’
It has been said that Jeb offended Asians by saying that many anchor babies are Chinese.
Offended? It’s a fact. There was just a big, highly-publicized ICE raid recently in Southern California where a hotel was full of very pregnant Chinese women who came here to get citizenship for their babies.
I have seen people other than Asians say they are offended by the phrase anchor baby. Tough. I once used the word “wetback” in a speech referring to one of the causes of real estate appreciation in CA. A black woman called me and said Latinos don’t like that. Tough again. If you cross the RIo Grande River without the aid of a bridge, your back gets wet. It is a perfectly legitimate name. Italians don’t like the name “wop.” It is the acronym for “Without Papers,” apparently a common, bureaucrat, illegal alien term of the era. Gays don’t like the term homosexual. It is a medical term based on the greek word for same—totally neutral.
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“It’s how it was used or the unpopularity of it,” many would say. That’s not the word’s fault. It is a personal problem of those who are, or claim to be, “offended.“ It sounds like anyone who is in an unpopular category now claims the right to demand all who speak of them use a euphemism—“a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.” Euphemisms are borderline dishonest—intellectually-dishonest spin.
General memo to all those offended by things I say: kiss my ass. I am offended by your being offended by things you have no right to be offended by.
Use both amendment and statute to fix it
I think Ted Cruz has the right policy. He says to pursue a Constitutional amendment to fix it AND to pursue a parallel course of trying to fix it by statute as some lawyers thinks is possible. At some point, the Supreme Court will say whether the statute fix is constitutional.
I see no merit whatsoever in the position of some that anchor babies should NOT be made illegal. It’s pure Democrat political business model crap and/or white-guilt crap.
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The n-word may “come from” Spanish but the Spanish word for black is negro, not the n-word. When I was a kid, we were taught to use the word negro and not the n-word. There is still a college fund that uses the name. I do not get logic from religious books. That same book says the earth is 5,000 years old or some such. words do not “develop.” Jerks like you and Anita Henderson decide you have some authorotiy to demand the the rest of us speak the way you order us to. Kiss my ass.
Your logic for saying that ‘wetback’ and ‘anchor baby’ are not pejorative terms are truly dumbfounding. ‘If you cross the Rio Grande without the aid of a bridge, your back gets wet.’ Yup, so ‘nigger’ is not pejorative because it simply comes from the Spanish word for black and, hey, niggers have black skin? You surely would have no problem calling a Jew a ‘Christ-killer’, then? Because, hey, that’s logical, since in the Gospel according to Matthew the Jews are responsible for Jesus’ death? Perhaps you should read the excellent work by linguist Anita Henderson in the Spring issue of 2003 of American Speech, entitled ‘What is a Slur?’ in which she explains how ethnophaulisms develop from purely descriptive to usage as pejorative.