Justice
The Number of 'Anchor Babies' in the U.S. Is Actually Decreasing
A Pew report estimates 295,000 babies born to unauthorized immigrants in 2013—much lower than the Trump campaign suggests.
Donald Trump and Jeb Bush recently fielded some criticism regarding their use of the term “anchor babies” for children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents. The derogatory term stems from the idea that these U.S.-born children essentially “anchor” their non-citizen parents to America, allowing them to mooch off the government and cut the line to legal citizenship. Essentially, the term’s users believe that “anchor babies” incentivize illegal immigration to the U.S., and therefore pose a social problem.
Here’s Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, quantifying this so-called problem on CNN this August: