Anchor babies is where people from a foreign country come to the US for the express purpose of giving birth so their child has US citizenship. Agencies charge $5,000 to $15,000 for room and board. My guess is hospital fees are extra, as well as airfare.

So can anything be done about this?  My guess is nothing, since the current majority interpretation of the 14th amendment is automatic citizenship. A changing the US constitution is almost impossible - 27 ammendments in 200 years.

Key wording from the 14th amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

A site that disagrees:
http://www.14thamendment.us/index.html

Some nations do not automatically give citizenship for having been born in a country. The long term problem is then you may have several generations of immigrants, who never become citizens to a country.

A surprising fact is that China and the US do not recognize dual citizenship. I have noticed lots of Chinese and Taiwanese have dual passports. It makes customs a lot easier when visiting China or Taiwan. One Taiwanese I know even changed his last name to an American name, he explained he got treated better when visiting China. My wife's was shocked an ethnic Chinese would do this, since the name has such a huge meaning.

Labels: immigrating, US Chinese Image