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ANCHOR BABY BUSINESS BOOMING
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© 2009 RedAlert.WND.com By Dr. Jerome R. Corsi
'Birth tourism' business opens backdoor for illegal aliens into U.S.
Medical tourism, a business that has thrived on Americans going to countries like Argentina for cheap plastic surgery or dental work, has taken a new twist, exploring opportunities among illegal immigrants.
"Since 2003, more than 12,000 Turkish children have been born in the U.S., giving them instant citizenship, under the 14th Amendment," wrote Dave Gibson in the Examiner. "They are part of a growing trend known as 'birth tourism.'"
The idea is that a foreign national expecting a baby makes travel plans through a "birth tourism" agency to travel to the United States at the right time to give birth.
Flourishing in countries like Turkey, companies in the birth tourism business are able to arrange trips to U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago at a price ranging from $25,000 to $40,000, all for a package that includes the flight, city tours, living accommodations for several months and hospital expenses.
The 14th Amendment misinterpreted
Birth tourism relies on the lax interpretation of the 14th Amendment that Hispanic immigrants entering the United States through Mexico have used to argue Hispanic children born in the United States to illegal immigrants are "birthright citizens."
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868, and its purpose was to make sure citizenship rights went to the native-born African-Americans whose rights were being challenged because they were recently freed slaves.
Even more specifically, the 14th Amendment was aimed at preventing a state government from denying native-born African-Americans the rights they were entitled to receive as citizens of the United States.
Still, since hospitals issue birth certificates typically for every baby born in the hospital and because birth certificates are the key documentation needed to get other official documentation, including driver's licenses and passports, birth in the United States has been the backdoor for illegal immigrants to get their children rights of U.S. citizens.
Magnitude of the birth citizenship problem
Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, estimates that one out of every 10 births in the United States is to an illegal alien mother.
Krikorian points out that consular officers are not permitted to turn down a visa application simply because a woman will soon give birth.
Frosty Wooldridge, a long-time advocate of closed borders, argues that each year 400,000 pregnant women enter the United States specifically to take advantage of birth citizenship opportunities.
The current system allows foreigners to decide completely on their own who will and will not be a member of the American people, Krikorian points out.
Birth tourism is being openly touted on the Internet.
"The prosperity of the United States of America and its willingness to share its bounties are under severe exploitation by the immigrants, especially those who play it out through 'anchor babies,'" writes CoperWiki.org. "The American concept of a welfare state has a lot of contribution to the booming phenomenon of birth tourism."
The phenomenon of birth tourism flourished first in Asia, with countries such as South Korea taking the lead.
Now companies have sprung up around the globe to promote birth tourism to those foreign nationals capable of paying up to $50,000 just to make sure their babies are born in the U.S.
U.S. hospitals offering birth packages to affluent foreign nationals typically offer the service with a marketing message that stresses technology and downplays the attraction of instant U.S. citizenship.
The potential for birth tourism to become a black market criminal activity has popped up in several nations, including Jamaica, according to bloggers who follow the issue.
Still, there is no reason to believe any comprehensive immigration reform legislation the White House may introduce to Congress this year will do anything whatsoever to close the birth citizenship loophole.
ABOUT YOUR GUEST: Dr. Jerome Corsi received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality and the co-author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, which was also a #1 New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor to WorldNetDaily.com.
ABOUT RED ALERT: Jerome Corsi's RED ALERT is your weekly, global financial strategies newsletter. Designed to be your guide to economic trends in the best of times and the worst of times, it is edited by New York Times best-selling author Jerome Corsi, a WND staff writer and columnist. For 25 years, Corsi worked with banks throughout the U.S. and the world developing financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. Corsi developed three third-party financial services marketing firms that reached annual gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. Corsi received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1972.