Coming as Tourists, Leaving With American Babies (maternity home shut down)

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

SAN GABRIEL, Calif. — The building inspectors and police officers walked into the small row of connected town houses here knowing something was amiss. Neighbors had complained about noise and a lot of pregnant women coming and going. And when they went into a kitchen they saw a row of clear bassinets holding several infants, with a woman acting as a nurse hovering over them.

For months, officials say, the house was home to “maternity tourists,” in this case, women from China who had paid tens of thousands of dollars to deliver their babies in the United States, making the infants automatic American citizens. Officials shut down the home, sending the 10 mothers who had been living there with their babies to nearby motels.

“These were not women living in squalor — it was a well taken care of place and clean, but there were a lot of women and babies,” said Clayton Anderson, a city inspector who shut down the house on March 9. “I have never seen anything like this before. We really couldn’t determine the exact number of people living there.”

For the last year, the debate over birthright citizenship has raged across the country, with some political leaders calling for an end to the 14th Amendment, which gives automatic citizenship to any baby born in the United States. Much of the debate has focused on immigrants entering illegally from poor countries in Latin America. But in this case the women were not only relatively wealthy, but also here legally on tourist visas. Most of them, officials say, have already returned to China with their American babies.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/us/29babies.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

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and last night i was reading about this issue on DU and wikipedia! The Washington Post had a similar story last summer For many pregnant Chinese, a U.S. passport for baby remains a powerful lure on its frontpage

[snappyturtle]

1. I think this could be a big problem. nt

[timo]

2. nope

no problem here at all, people have been bitching about this for YEARS no reason to start listening now, anchor babies??? nah couldn't be an issue at all!!!!! and when mommy cant work the babiy gets on the dole!!!

[Tempest]

4. This is different from the anchor baby issue

These women are leaving the country after giving birth.

Anchor babies are different and make up an tiny number of immigrant babies born each year.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. The mothers must be flying in during their seventh or eighth month.

Obviously, the private company needs to be fined in a way that will discourage others from following their example.

[vim876]

14. Great Idea!

Let's use sex and pregnancy discrimination to solve the problem! /sarcasm

[stockholmer]

5. here is a global map of the nations that have birthright citizenship (all are in the Americas)

Almost all but the USA will not allow a birth certificate to be given for the baby until both the parents present show documents to show they are legally in the country.

[freshwest]

7. Wow, what a contrast. Why is this, I wonder?

[dflprincess]

8. Countries settled by immigrants vs the countries the immigrants came from. n/t

[freshwest]

10. That's how it is, but not what I'm asking.

Why don't the non-birthright countries give it?

How can the baby be born there and not be a citizen? It didn't choose where to be born.

And if a child is born in one of those countries and the parents die, is it an illegal resident?

I'm sure I'm missing something here. Somehow it doesn't seem right.

[stockholmer]

12. physical birthplace,to us in Sweden,etc, doesnt matter,its the relationship of parents to the nation

without that tie that binds, and the willingness to be a part of our society by obeying our laws, a nation doesnt owe the gift of citizenship to anyone. And once a citizen, a person cant lose it, although they can renounce it themselves.

[stockholmer]

11. the SA countries modeled their constitutions off yours, and also they wanted immigrants, but now...

all but the USA use de facto blocking practises to prevent illegals from having babies given citizenship. Canada has its own ways of blocking people, as they now have a 'public burden' test for entry, even if one of your parents are Canadian citizens.

For instance, if you got a job in Canada, and then applied for your spouse to join you, she/he has to have an official government health exam. Lets say your spouse has lupus, or hepatitis C. They will be denied, due to the claim that they will be an undue burden on the Canadian people via health care expense.

The USA, unfortunately for the citizens there of all ethnicities, is locked into a strange paradigm, designed to accomplish the systemic controller's end game, which is lower the wages of the entire populace and reduce the social mobility expectations of the workforce. If you come illegally to the USA from Mexico or from China, and were making 5 or 10 dollars a day, you will be thrilled with $50 or $60 a day, but for the American already there, this pay level is not acceptable as a striving-level motivation. This is the route of appeal designed to capture and manipulate the bourgeoisie Republican.

Furthermore, it is also a divisive political football designed for the Left, wherein the Democratic party looks with great happiness as the more legal and illegal immigrants that come in, the more votes they are sure they can get.

Here is my problem with this whole line.

1. The left (myself included) cherishes a broad social safety net, but here in the EU, especially the northern part, we are able to provide this because we have a large amount of high wage, high-skilled industrial manufacturing jobs, and we do not give auto-citizenship. The USA has shipped off 85% of its industrial manufacturing base since 1965, and has no system of high-tech trade schools to offer. Therefore, the vast majority of immigrants simply add into the already damaged job market, and most of the illegal ones work near the bottom for their lives, and many of the legal ones with skill sets simply debase the wages of the skilled pre-existing American workforce (look at Silicon Valley foreign software workers). Of course you can find many many exceptions, but in a nation of 312 million, they don't change the bottom line. This overall downward wage/skill pressure reduces the social democratic ideal from being realized at a multiplicity of levels.

2. Beware of auto-voters. By this I mean groups who will vote for a party in huge numbers no matter what that party actually does. If I was to list off the political major events from 2009 to now (expansion of war in Afghanistan, non closure of Guantanamo Bay, renewal and expansion of Patriot Act and DHS, renewal of huge tax breaks for the rich, new war in Libya, a health care reform (written by the insurance industry) that never seriously had single-payer as a goal, no serious financial reform, no prosecutions of anyone of import for the massive multi-trillion dollar fraud of the last decade, etc etc etc) and not tell you the party of the president, you would of course assume that those actions came from the pen of a Republican. If a party has auto-voters it can count on no matter what, it will abuse much of its base principles. Look at what is happening now, Obama gives left cover to right wing de facto policies.

3. Divide and conquer nature of not only the political immigration debate, but the outcome in the financial/physical/cultural real world as well. At some point, the country will reach a tipping point where the values that created the best of BOTH the American Left and the American Right will cease to exist, and the core values that held the nation together will be rent asunder. Then the WORST of both sides comes out, all orchestrated by the systemic controllers at the top, as they do not care which of the two parties is in so-called power, their agenda passes either way, nd the turmoil is a distraction away from their wicked ways.

This is the very model that makes 3rd world dictators so prevalent, as the nations they rule are artificial constructs with little ties that bind. They thus play one group against the other, and there is no center for deliberative democracy to cling to. Tyranny and poverty rule the day.

[iverglas]

15. look, can we STOP misrepresenting Canadian immigration policy???

If you are not from Canada, or if you are from Canada, and you know fuck all about Canadian immigration policy, could you all just STFU??

First, Canada's constitution is not "modelled on" the United States constitution ... to any greater extent than the US constitution is modelled on many things that came before it, in any event.

Our constitution is in many ways very different from the US constitution. EQUALITY RIGHTS, a hugely important element of Canada's constitutional law and history, are one major example.

Before I forget, I want to query the source of the "birthright" map:
http://www.cis.org/
-- an odd sort of place, highly recommended by many Republican politicians.

Canadian citizenship law provides that anyone born in Canada (other than children of people with special status such as diplomats) has Canadian citizenship.

What does this statement:
Canada has its own ways of blocking people, as they now have a 'public burden' test for entry, even if one of your parents are Canadian citizens.
have to do with Canadian citizenship laws??

Babies born in a country do not "enter" it, and cannot have a "test" applied to them before they are allowed to arrive.

Nationals of other countries whose parent becomes a Canadian citizen through the immigration and citizenship process, but who are not included in the parent's application (presumably because they are adults), must apply for immmigration.

All applicants for immigration are subject to a number of statutory and regulatory requirements, and maybe inadmissible for various reasons: criminality, security, health, and the one you seem to be talking about:

http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/sc-2001-c-27/latest/sc-2001-c-27.html

39. A foreign national is inadmissible for financial reasons if they are or will be unable or unwilling to support themself or any other person who is dependent on them, and have not satisfied an officer that adequate arrangements for care and support, other than those that involve social assistance, have been made.

Note the words FOREIGN NATIONAL. This has NOTHING TO DO with citizenship by virtue of birth.

For instance, if you got a job in Canada, and then applied for your spouse to join you, she/he has to have an official government health exam. Lets say your spouse has lupus, or hepatitis C. They will be denied, due to the claim that they will be an undue burden on the Canadian people via health care expense.

Have you practised immigration law in Canada?

I have.

That's one possible outcome. And it could very well be reversed on appeal. On appeal, humanitarian and compassionate grounds may be argued and succeed. Those grounds can also be argued initially, and the statutory bar can be overcome by issuing a permit.

Are you suggesting that there are loads of countries on earth where people may bring family members legally and easily as immigrants notwithstanding the fact that the family member has a serious communicable disease or condition requiring intensive use of medical resources?

(Let's remember that Canada has a universal single public payer health care system, and that people admitted as immigrants are as entitled to full coverage by that system as anyone born here.)


I will ask once again.

Please leave Canada and all of the multitudinous misrepresentations of Canadian immigration policy OUT of your debates about US immigration policy.

The two countries' situations are comparable in some respects and not comparable in others, but tossing a few Canadian oranges into the US apple barrel and calling the Canadian oranges rotten apples instead just isn't neighbourly.

[KamaAina]

16. Our lack of a parliamentary system tends to encourage "auto-voting"

So eager were the Founding Fathers to break free of the British paradigm that they created an electoral system which tends strongly towards the formation of two, and only two, parties. There's simply no means for a smaller party such as the Greens to win enough congressional seats that the Dems (say) might actually have to form a coalition with them.

Attempts at third-party or independent candidacies in the U.S. quite often end up blowing up in the face of the outside candidate's ideals, most infamously in 2000 when Ralph Nader siphoned just enough Florida votes from Gore to set the stage for The Great Election Robbery by the Supreme Court. More recently we've seen Minnesota elect Tim Pawlenty by weak pluralities twice, while Maine's uber-teabagger Paul LePage won by a hair over an independent, with the Dem nominee playing the role of spoiler. In Europe, a second round of voting prevents this sort of outcome.

So yeah, as long as there are only two viable parties, and one of them (the repukes) wants to impose a neo-feudalist theocracy on us, then yeah, I'll be an "auto-voter" for the Dems.

[demigoddess]

13. if this is true, why did my sister born in france have dual citizenship??

I grew up in the military and often heard of kids with american parents who were born overseas having dual citizenships. The story was that my sister if she had been a boy would have to do military training in France unless the french citizenship was given up.

[freshwest]

6. Interesting, but it was closed for code violations, not what they were doing. It'll be back.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

9. This has gone on for decades,

It first became common place among the South Vietnamese looking to protect their unborn children from the inevitable. And for example I work with a South African woman who was born in Miami in 1975. Her parents took an extended vacation in the US to ensure she would be born in the US and then they went home with their "American" daughter. Her parents repeated the process when her brother was born in Australia in 1981, although Australia changed the law in the mid-80's because so many pregnant South Africans were showing up. They are Afrikaners so there is no British passport in their back pocket and her parents wanted to make sure their children could easily escape if they had to.

For the Chinese it is more getting their kids into good US universities than serious emigration ambitions.

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. a friend here on temp visa described birthing her kids in the US as 'a gift' to the kids

They plan to eventully go back to their country but the kids will have US citizenship which will give them the option of returning to america in the future. She said everyone was doing it.