Pregnant Middle Eastern Women Delivering ‘Anchor Babies’ in Chicago

Anchor Baby Art
GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP/Getty Images

Pregnant Middle Eastern women are taking advantage of the United States’ policy that gives foreign nationals the ability to secure American citizenship for their children so long as they are born within the parameters of the country.

A local report by ABC 7 Chicago detailed how pregnant foreign nationals are traveling to the U.S. to deliver their children to ensure that they are given American citizenship.

One doctor who spoke with ABC 7 Chicago, Dr. Mia Norlin, said most of the women she sees in Chicago hospitals taking advantage of the country’s birthright citizenship policy are from the Middle East.

“Most of the patients I’ve taken care of are from Middle Eastern countries,” Dr. Norlin said. “We looked into it to make sure that it was legal … it’s different than most of our patients.”

The report noted that websites advertising to help foreign pregnant women come to the U.S. to deliver their children often offer six-figure packages. As Breitbart News has chronicled, in Florida, pregnant Russian women have fueled a baby boom in regions of the state as they arrive in the country to make sure their children get U.S. citizenship.

The U.S.-born children of foreign nationals, specifically those visiting the U.S. and illegal aliens, are commonly known as “anchor babies.” There are at least 4.5 million anchor babies in the country, a population that exceeds the total number of annual American births in 48 states, as about 300,000 anchor babies are born every year. Currently, the U.S. and Canada are the only developed nations in the world that offer unrestricted birthright citizenship.

About one-in-five U.S. births — or 791,000 — are to legal and illegal immigrant mothers, with legal immigrant mothers accounting for about 12.4 percent of those births and illegal alien mothers accounting for 7.5 percent.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled that the children of illegal aliens must be granted automatic American citizenship, and many legal scholars dispute the idea. Trump promised last year to end birthright citizenship through executive action, but the order has yet to be revealed or signed.

In a recent birth tourism crackdown, federal immigration officials revealed that three birth tourism companies allegedly helped more than 8,500 anchor babies secure American citizenship. In the process, the three companies profited at least $7 million.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.