How many American children are ‘birthright’ citizens born to illegal immigrants?

*The entire “anchor baby” issue is based on anecdotal evidence. Those who use the term have yet to back their words with statistics, and that may be because the words don’t stand the test of numbers. Also, it’s hard to define  what’s meant by “anchor baby,” because it’s not as simple as it sounds. VL

By Philip Bump, The Washington Post

Much of Donald Trump’s immigration rhetoric is predicated on anecdotes, not data. Asked to back up his claim that scads of illegal Mexican immigrants are rapist and murderers, he pointed to a single tragic death in San Francisco. Asked at the first debate to prove that the Mexican government is sending these criminals into the United States, he said that border patrol agents told him it was happening. There’s no evidence of the latter, and the former is not true.

[pullquote][tweet_dis]8.4 percent of the resident adult population of the United States in 2012 was the child of a person born outside the country.[/tweet_dis][/pullquote]

Following the release of his more-detailed immigration plan over the weekend, Trump has begun talking about “anchor babies” — children born to usually-illegal immigrants who, despite their parents’ status, become Americans under the 14th Amendment’s “birthright citizenship.” The term is usually regarded as more of a slur than a definition, used by different people in different ways. Often, it is used by people who believe the “anchor baby” makes it easier for their parents to stay in the United States.

In the interest of applying data analysis to Trump’s claims, we set out to answer the question: How many children of such immigrants are in the United States?

The answer at the top: It depends.

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