While Republican presidential candidates debate whether
to toss out the 150-year-old 14th Amendment’s “birthright citizenship,” and
liberals demand that the term “anchor baby” be removed from political
discourse, the more important facts of the issue are ignored.
At The Washington Post’s “The Fix” blog, Janell Ross
drilled deep into the immigration laws and came to this conclusion: The anchor
baby is a myth.
The U.S. does not experience a flood of women coming across
the border to give birth because, while the baby earns citizenship, the mother
and father of the child gain no legal advantage. They still face deportation –
and a ban from immigrating to America for decades.
“For illegal immigrant parents, being the parent of a
U.S. citizen child almost never forms the core of a successful defense in an
immigration court. In short, if the undocumented parent of a U.S.-born child is
caught in the United States, he or she legally faces the very same risk of
deportation as any other immigrant.
“The only thing that a so-called anchor baby can do to
assist either of their undocumented parents involves such a long game that it’s
not a practical immigration strategy, said Greg Chen, an immigration law
expert and director of The American Immigration Lawyers Association, a trade
group that also advocates for immigrant-friendly reforms. That long game is this:
If and when a U.S. citizen reaches the age of 21, he or she can then apply
for a parent to obtain a visa and green card and eventually enter the United
States legally.”
stay when the parents awaited the birth of their child makes the ban on legally
entering the U.S. much longer.
All told, according to immigration law, the parents of
the so-called anchor baby face a 24-to-31-year wait to even enter the United
States, much less obtain a visa and green card or become a citizen.
