Sometimes I Think People From Other Countries Value Being An American Citizen More Than Americans Do

On Monday, the New York Times posted an article about city officials in San Gabriel, California, closing down a house that was used for ‘maternity tourists.’ 

The article reported:

“For months, officials say, the house was home to “maternity tourists,” in this case, women from China who had paid tens of thousands of dollars to deliver their babies in the United States, making the infants automatic American citizens. Officials shut down the home, sending the 10 mothers who had been living there with their babies to nearby motels.

“”These were not women living in squalor — it was a well taken care of place and clean, but there were a lot of women and babies,” said Clayton Anderson, a city inspector who shut down the house on March 9. “I have never seen anything like this before. We really couldn’t determine the exact number of people living there.””

The house that was closed down was neat and clean and populated by women from China.  The women involved were here legally.  The children born here were not ‘anchor babies’ in the sense that their mothers were here illegally.  The debate over giving American citizenship to anyone born here has generaly centered on anchor babies rather than babies born to women here legally.

The article states that the State Department cannot deny a woman a visa simply because she is pregnant.

The article points out:

“”These people aren’t doing anything in violation of our laws,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tougher immigration controls. “But if anything, it is worse than illegal immigrants delivering a baby here. Those kids are socialized as Americans. This phenomenon of coming to the U.S. and then leaving with people who have unlimited access to come back is just ridiculous.””

To me, this is a whole new aspect of the idea that any baby born in America automatically becomes a citizen.

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