A new report estimates that nearly 36,000 pregnant tourists entered the United States in 2012 alone to give birth to children who would receive automatic U.S. citizenship.
The report cites a Center for Disease Control study which tallies the nearly 900,000 women who gave birth in the U.S. in that year who claimed they were not born in the U.S.
By extrapolating that number against other statistics, the Center for Immigration Studies arrived at a very precise figure of 35,568 births to tourist-mothers in that year, according to the Washington Examiner.
The numbers suggest that the percentage of total births to tourist-mothers in the last year potentially could be twice that figure with President Obama’s executive amnesty program.
Immigrants who entered the United States during that time frame could have a double-claim on remaining in the country given their baby’s citizenship. This would allow a path to legalization via the Department of Homeland Security’s processing protocol.
Even if the federal courts ultimately ultimately declare executive amnesty unconstitutional, the increase in anchor-baby immigration is unlikely to subside. It will take meaningful reform either to current immigration policies or border security measures to close our immigration loopholes.