{"id":17809,"date":"2018-11-01T14:14:11","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T18:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=17809"},"modified":"2018-12-28T09:37:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T14:37:10","slug":"birthright-babies-outnumbered-births-in-16-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2018\/11\/01\/birthright-babies-outnumbered-births-in-16-states\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Birthright\u2019 Babies Outnumbered Births in 16 States"},"content":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump\u2019s call to end birthright citizenship<\/a> has roiled the political environment and sets the stage for more probing debate about the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment<\/a>. So what\u2019s at stake?<\/p>\n Though births by illegal aliens are, by definition, difficult to quantify with exactitude, recent research estimates that 297,000 \u201cbirthright babies\u201d<\/a> were born in this country in 2014 (the latest year for which reliable census data was available).<\/p>\n Putting those 297,000 births in perspective, an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies found:<\/p>\n Birthing costs are, of course, just the tip of the iceberg since the automatic citizenship of \u201canchor babies\u201d enables them, as adults, to sponsor their illegal-alien parents for U.S. green cards. A FAIR study<\/a> last year estimated that U.S. taxpayers shell out $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by individuals illegally in this country.<\/p>\n Although legal and illegal immigration adds substantially to the number of U.S. births, the CIS report noted that it raises the nation\u2019s overall birth rate by only 4 percent. This is partly because immigrant fertility<\/a> is not much higher than that of natives.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a caveat. Comparing Census reports with birth certificate records from the National Center for Health Statistics<\/a>, CIS researchers concluded \u201cthere is likely some undercount of immigrant births\u201d in the Census data.<\/p>\n All the more reason to bring the dubious concept of birthright citizenship out of the shadows for an unflinching and long-overdue constitutional examination.<\/p>\n PREVIOUS: Ending Anchor Babies by Executive Action<\/strong><\/a> \n