I do not think people realize how American citizenship and legal staus is prized by many who wnat to come here. It is a Holy Grail. Cases of dead people in a shipping container on a ship from Asia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_baby
History and usage[edit]
A related term, anchor child, referring in this case to "very young immigrants who will later sponsor immigration for family members who are still abroad", was used in reference to Vietnamese boat people from about 1987.[7][10][11][12][13] In 2002 in the Irish High Court, Bill Shipsey used the term to refer to an Irish-born child whose family were his clients; in the 2003 Supreme Court judgment upholding the parents' deportation, Adrian Hardiman commented on the novelty of both the term and concomitant argument.[14] (In Ireland jus soli citizenship was abolished in 2004.)
"Anchor baby" appeared in print in 1996, but remained relatively obscure until 2006, when it found new prominence amid the increased focus on the immigration debate in the United States.[4][7][13][15] The term is generally considered pejorative.[16] In 2011 the American Heritage Dictionary added an entry for the term in the dictionary's new edition, which did not indicate that the term was disparaging. Following a critical blog piece by Mary Giovagnoli, the director of the Immigration Policy Center, a pro-immigration research group in Washington, the dictionary updated its online definition to indicate that the term is "offensive", similar to its entries on ethnic slurs.[15][17] As of 2012, the definition reads:
n. Offensive Used as a disparaging term for a child born to a noncitizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially when the child's birthplace is thought to have been chosen in order to improve the mother's or other relatives' chances of securing eventual citizenship.
The decision to revise the definition led to some criticism from immigration opponents, such as the Center for Immigration Studies and the Federation for American Immigration Reform.[18]
In 2012, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, in a meeting designed to promote the 2010 Utah Compact declaration as a model for a federal government approach to immigration, said that "The use of the word 'anchor baby' when we're talking about a child of God is offensive."[19]
Maternity tourism industry[edit]
Main article: Birth tourism
As of 2015, Los Angeles is considered the center of the maternity tourism industry, which caters mostly to wealthy Asian women;[20] authorities in the city there closed 14 maternity tourism "hotels" in 2013.[21] The industry is difficult to close down since it is not illegal for a pregnant woman to travel to the U.S.[21]
On March 3, 2015 Federal Agents in Los Angeles conducted a series of raids on 3 "multimillion-dollar birth-tourism businesses" expected to produce the "biggest federal criminal case ever against the booming 'anchor baby' industry", according to the Wall Street Journal.[21][22]
Ireland's abolition of unconditional birthright citizenship[edit]
In 2005, Ireland amended its constitution to become the last country in Europe to abolish unconditional jus soli citizenship, as a direct result of concerns over birth tourism. A headline case was Chen v Home Secretary, whereby a Chinese temporary migrant living in mainland United Kingdom travelled to Belfast, Northern Ireland to give birth to her daughter for the purpose of obtaining Irish citizenship for her daughter (Ireland's jus soli law extends to all parts of the island of Ireland, including Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK). The daughter's Irish citizenship was then used by her parents to obtain permanent residence in the UK as the parents of a dependent EU citizen.[23]