I’ve been spending a lot of time in California as of late and came across this piece of news in The LA Times and on tv:
US law does not currently forbid a person from specifically traveling to the country to give birth and automatically grants citizenship to persons born on American soil (Chinese law stipulates that at least one parent must be a Chinese citizen before granting citizenship to a child); as a result, an increasing number of expecting Chinese parents have been going this route hoping for a leg up for their children’s education, living environment or the opportunity to have a second child (due to China’s current One-Child Policy).
Critics contend that people are taking advantage of a loophole in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution to flout US immigration laws, and some have even gone so far as to label children born under these circumstances "Anchor Babies" (a term akin to the oft-used "Illegals" used to describe a person of foreign nationality residing in the US without proper documentation).
In these situations, it’s not too hard to sniff out the subtly xenophobic undercurrents of this stance (if kids born in these circumstances are "anchor babies," I wonder what that makes me as a child of immigrants to the US), but it’s hard to argue against law enforcement coming down on a completely unlicensed and unsupervised facility — you’ve really got to wonder about the foolhardiness of entrusting your pregnant spouse to a facility illegally housed in a condo.
No matter your stance, one thing’s for sure, stories like these is going to bring even more legal attention to the increasingly complex issues of immigration, visas and citizenship in both the US and China.
