Few Immigrants Cross Border to Give Birth

A quick but significant note.

Not to belabor the immigration issue, but I found this interesting in its logic, or lack of it. The Chicago Sun Times reports:

The vast majority of illegal immigrants who had children in the United States in 2010 had entered the country several years earlier, according to a new report.

The report in question was done by the Pew Hispanic Center and here’s why it matters.  Those immigrants who have babies in this country do so, by and large, several years after coming here, and that throws the “anchor baby” logic out the porthole.

Anchors are lowered immediately after arrival at safe harbor or designated anchorage from a port, there’s no waiting around. Those babies must wait ’till they’re 21 in order to petition for their parents to become legal residents of the US. Doesn’t it make sense that if the intent was to have a baby that would anchor your status you’d want the process to begin as soon as possible?  So why are the majority waiting years before getting that process started?

“It’s real concrete data that I think destroys this notion that immigrant women are crossing the border illegally [to have] babies,” said Angela Kelley of the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank.