E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSTens of thousands of mainland Chinese women travel every year to Hong Kong to give birth so their children can enjoy the former British colony's benefits. NBC's Adrienne Mong reports on the growing tension the trend has fueled between Hong Kong locals and mainlanders.
HONG KONG & SHENZHEN, China – Anchor babies. Birth tourism. Cross-border births.
It’s a growing global phenomenon driven by Chinese with wherewithal and wealth. Chinese from a China that – even as it continues to grow and open up to the rest of the world – still faces a restrictive enough present and an uncertain enough future that they choose to give birth outside of China.
Some do it to avoid the one-child policy. Many do so for the benefits the child will receive as a citizen of the country into which it’s born: free or better education, the freedom to travel, good social services, a safe haven.
The United States is overwhelmingly the most popular destination for wealthy Chinese, a phenomenon covered by NBC News.
But a close second is Hong Kong, the tiny former British colony of 7 million people.
Since its return to Beijing’s oversight in 1997, and as China has made it easier for its people to travel, tens of thousands of mainlanders regularly head over the border to book up maternity wards at Hong Kong’s good quality and affordable public hospitals.
Of the 88,000 births in Hong Kong in 2010, roughly 45 percent were delivered by mainland Chinese women, according to Hong Kong's government.
The growing number of cross-border births isn’t just straining health care resources and the local population’s goodwill. It’s also helped to provoke an identity crisis that 15 years after the handover has alienated local residents from their northern neighbors.
A business catering to pregnant mainlanders
For four years, Gordon Li has been running a business from Shenzhen, southern China, arranging travel to Hong Kong for pregnant mainland Chinese women.
Adrienne Mong/File
Many Hong Kong locals believe their quality of life is being eroded by mainland China---including the air.
(*Gordon Li is not his real name; he did not want to divulge his identity. Just last week, another agent from mainland China pleaded guilty to breaching Hong Kong immigration laws for helping mainland women give birth in the city. It was Hong Kong’s first prosecution of its kind and, given the current mood, may not be the last.)
“We work like a travel agency [and] the fee depends on the client –whether they want to stay in a luxury hotel or a small hotel, etc.,” said Li, who charges his clients between a few thousand yuan and 20,000 yuan ($3,200) to navigate the system. Most of his customers are from the mainland’s wealthiest regions like Guangdong, Zhejiang, Beijing, and Shanghai.
Li estimates that he has helped at least a few hundred mainland women to have babies in Hong Kong. “Last year was the most,” he said.
His early clients were trying to get around the mainland’s strict one-child policy, but today most of his new customers travel to Hong Kong because, Li says, there are “a lot of conveniences.”
The public health system in freewheeling capitalist Hong Kong is considered better and safer than it is in its communist neighbor. Maternal mortality ratio statistics collected by organizations like the World Health Organization support Hong Kong’s reputation for good quality health care for mothers and newborn babies.
Bo Gu
Every day, more than 10,000 students who live in mainland China cross the border to go to school in Hong Kong.
Other benefits for newborns include being automatically eligible for “the right of abode” in Hong Kong, which means becoming permanent residents. Which in turn means unfettered access to free public education considered superior to that in the mainland; political freedoms; and ease of travel anywhere in the world.
And they are entitled to all of this without giving up their China citizenship.
In fact, more than 10,000 mainland Chinese children who were born in Hong Kong, but live in China, go across the border every day to attend school in the former British colony.
Hong Kong is fed up
Huang Lijuan is a 27-year-old kindergarten teacher from Guangdong Province. She and her husband, Tsing Ho Nan, a 32-year-old engineer from Hong Kong, met in Shenzhen and moved to Hong Kong after getting married.
“I’m three months pregnant, and the due date is August 5,” Huang told NBC News one afternoon in a community center in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong. “But I haven’t been able to book a hospital bed in a maternity ward. All of the public hospitals are fully booked.”
“There are 80 to 100 [mainland women married to Hong Kong men living here] who are pregnant, but they failed to book any hospitals to deliver their babies,” said Koon Wing Tsang, an organizer with the Mainland-Hong Kong Families Rights Association. Like Huang, they are all casualties of recent restrictions on non-local women.
Under popular pressure, the Health Authority (HA) in Hong Kong has instituted quotas for non-local residents. Currently, only 3,400 births by non-local women are permitted at public hospitals this year – down from 10,000 in 2011. Private hospitals are allowed 31,000 births by non-local women.
“The government and the HA are committed to ensuring that local pregnant women will be given priority in the use of the services over non-Hong Kong residents (non-eligible persons, NEPs),” said a Health Authority spokesman in a written response to NBC News requests for an interview.
But even the new quotas may not be enough. As Huang found out, all the maternity wards in Hong Kong’s public hospitals – and many private clinics – are fully booked until September.
Moreover, the quotas don’t prevent mainland women from using the emergency wards as a last resort. More than 1,600 such births last year were delivered in Hong Kong’s emergency rooms – an unnecessary medical risk since such wards are not equipped or staffed properly for deliveries.
Some Hong Kong government officials have raised the possibility of an outright ban on mainland Chinese women giving birth in the city, but critics have argued enforcement is problematic.
Others have suggested ending the practice of granting automatic permanent residency status to babies born to non-local parents. To do so, according to legal experts as well as Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang, would mean having to reinterpret the Basic Law – the territory’s mini-constitution.
Any such action would require consultations with Beijing, which could prove to be a political minefield for Hong Kong, which prides itself on its Western-style democratic values.
China to ban names that signal 'orphan' status
'Locusts' & 'running dogs'
Adding fuel to the fire is a recent series of tense confrontations between local and mainland residents.
Last month, Hong Kong citizens were outraged over a report that a Dolce & Gabbana boutique had banned local shoppers from taking photographs of its shop, but allowed mainland Chinese tourists and other visitors to snap away. A Facebook campaign days later galvanized more than a thousand people to protest outside the shop, forcing it to shut early.
Barely a week later, a heated dispute broke out on the Hong Kong subway when a mainland Chinese child was asked to stop eating on the train – a practice banned in the territory. The argument between locals and mainlanders was captured by a cell phone camera, and the video went viral on the Internet.
Tensions were further inflamed by comments from a Peking University professor, who when shown the video of the subway dispute, called the territory’s residents “running dogs of the British imperialists.”
This month, a group of concerned Hong Kong citizens bought a full-page ad in a popular mainstream Chinese-language Hong Kong daily newspaper that called mainland visitors “locusts.” The term refers to the large numbers overrunning the territory to consume all its resources.
The "Locust" song, which features anti-mainland China lyrics, has gone viral on the Internet in Hong Kong.
A “locust” song even made the rounds on the Internet, with spiteful lyrics poking fun at mainland Chinese, and inspiring at least one group of young Hong Kong men to roam around singing the song at visiting mainland Chinese.
An identity crisis
“I think the real reason that Hong Kong people are upset is because they feel helpless politically,” said Wen Yunchao, a mainland blogger and activist now living in the territory. “The rules they believe in are being broken by all these mainland visitors, and yet they still have to rely on China economically.”
Dr. Elaine Chan at the Center of Civil Society and Governance at Hong Kong University agrees the tension is “a manifestation of something deeper.”
“Hong Kong people do not have a very positive view of mainlanders,” she said. “Not just because they are buying properties and not just because they are buying all the luxury goods. But also because of how they carry themselves.”
Both Wen and Chan argue there’s an underlying sensitivity to and awareness of the fact that Hong Kong is bound up with China –culturally, historically, politically, and economically – and yet there remains a gap in fundamental values between the two: in terms of the rule of law or basic civility. That tension makes some people in the territory uncomfortable.
For now, Beijing has remained silent at least on the cross-border births issue, although authorities in neighboring Guangdong province have promised to find a solution.
But another hot-button topic may soon eclipse that of birth tourism. The main topic of conversation last week was a government proposal to open up the border to mainland Chinese drivers and their vehicles. Concern over road safety issues is so great in Hong Kong that an online petition has already gathered 7,000 signatures.
With additional reporting by Bo Gu.
Leave a Comment:
Sounds a lot like the problems between Mexico and the U.S. Can we call the people of Hong Kong racist for not wanting their resources scavenged by the mainland Chinese?
This is not a problem with that is unique to Hong Kong. Seems Pregnant Chinese Women have found a way to deliver American babies as well.
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/28/8511587-born-in-the-usa-birth-tourists-get-instant-us-citizenship-for-their-newborns
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2077693,00.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/25/local/la-me-birthing-center-20110325
The United States is fair game for all regardless of Nationality to create Anchor babies.....
I know about the Chinese babies being born here so they can have citizenship. It's time to stop the automatic birthright for anchor babies of all nationalities. I just find it intriguing that it's happening to Hong Kong, and was pointing out that it is not a racist thing, but a resources one.... for both Hong Kong and the U.S.
Yeah, they must be racists, those Hong Kong people who don't want Chinese "Anchor Babies"! Oh, wait, they're not "White" so they can't be racists, right?
All we and Hong Kong have to do is repeal the law that makes somebody born in their country a citizen. In the United States it's the 14th Amendment. Not automatically a citizen, no more anchor babies. You're not automatically a citizen if you're a foreign national born in Mexico.
We could make it a law that says if your mother or father is from a country that grants citizenship to children born to foreign parents on their soil, we will recognize that right here. If their home country doesn't grant citizenship to babies born there, you don't get it here. And neither country may grant dual citizenship, nor may they have a "chain migration" policy. This will should the problem.
In case you haven't read the Latimes, there is a booming business in California where the Chinese have their babies in the U.S. and the children become citizens. A good amount of Chinese are doing this, that's why it's laughable that we're trying to stop the Mexicans from doing it, and not the Chinese.
We're trying to stop the Chinese too Sally.
The 14th amendment came about because of slavery. To make sure that children of slaves were given citizenship. At this point, I think the amendment is outdated. The intent was not for anyone who had 1 foot in the US and had a baby to give the baby citizenship. It is not a racial issue it is a resource problem. Also, I don't like the way the families use the anchor babies to argue that the illegal family members should stay in this country too.
Sally, I guess you are still in Chicago. The number of Mexicans makes the number of Chinese babies totally insignificant. Furthermore, take a look at the Chinese in the US and then at the Mexican illegal aliens. The Chinese in these articles arrived legally and then left with their babies. The illegal aliens did not have the right to entry in the first place, and they stay on to tax our social services, hospitals, and schools, while inventing aliases or stealing identities, driving without car insurance, and not learning English. These Chinese women are hoping their babies will be research scientists, not gardeners or construction workers who hope to retire to Mexico. I know how this sounds, but, unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases I believe this to be true.
Overpopulation, it will be the end of the earth soon.
If neither parent is a legal resident or citizen, the baby should not be granted automatic citizenship. Now, I'm willing to consider offering a path to earning citizenship for "anchor babies" but it would have to include things like mastering the English language, an otherwise clean criminal record, and successful completion of college or a trade apprenticeship. Also, those who earn citizenship this way would not be eligible for any government assistance programs except unemployment insurance or worker's comp for a period of 10 years.
if you read the 14th amendmentit says they are only citizens if the parent is governed by the constitiution and in this case and the cases with illegals they are not covered under this amendment so why are we allowing them benefits of being a us citizen
Since when have anchor babies not mastered the english language? If you were born in the U.S. you speak perfect english. If you were born in Mexico and came at a young age then I can see how you would have problems with the english language but not if you were born here. I've never met a person in my life who was born and raised in the U.S. not being fluent in english ever! As a matter of fact we are better at speaking english and slowly but surely forgetting spanish. You don't know s--t just another idiot posting things that are totally false!
GotYouAllFooled - try living in New Mexico if you think an anchor baby is fluent in English. This is the only state that doesn't recognize English as the main language. To them, English is a second language and Spanish is the only one that counts. They have even kept it in the state Constitution, that any teacher must be able to converse in Spanish with their students, if their students don't know enough English. All government offices must be able to converse with Spanish speaking citizens; in fact, you don't have to ever know the English language to be able to work, vote, go to school, etc. in this backward state.
Pure BS. I live in south Florida and I can tell you from first hand experience many immigrant children do not learn English until they go to public school. If mom and dad do not speak English, the child does not learn English until someone else teaches it, usually with tax money.
Interesting topic, but I can see both sides to the story.. If Hong Kong encourages China with their boyant economy to boost theirs obviously those that have the means will infiltrate the other benefits that Hong Kong has to offer. What parent doesn't want the best possible opportunities for their children. Its a shame that a happy balance cannot be reached.
Only when the governments of these countries are forced by their own people will the mistreatment stop. The Chinese government (or any other government) has NO problem with their people going to other countries to have their babies because it spreads the control and cuts down on their cost. The rich make due and the poor continue to pay. The need for our anchor baby policy is no longer needed and should be stopped like yesterday. Just because your baby is delivered here should NOT make him or her a citizen.
There aren't that many who actually come to the US despite what conservatives want you to believe.
So how are you going to determine who's a citizen? The Constitutional Amendment was put there because blacks were unfairly excluded. We don't want that to happen again.
How should the United States determine who is a citizen? Easy -- the same way that most other countries do. Is one of the parents of the newborn baby a U.S. citizen? If so, the baby will have automatic U.S. citizenship. If not, the baby will be a citizen of the same country where his/her parents have citizenship.
Bart, try reading the article before commenting
The United States is overwhelmingly the most popular destination for wealthy Chinese, a phenomenon covered by NBC News.
While Im 98% what is refered to Liberal, our country needs to STOP this...I dont care from what country, if your parents arent from here, or a naturalized citizen, their child shouldnt be an automatic citizen, PERIOD...That excuse of that law being created for slaves is antiquated at best....since there arent any more slaves, this should not be a law...
IM TIRED OF PAYING FOR THEM
I read a previous article that stated the Chinese women were coming to America to have their children via birth tourism. They were mostly China's wealthy elite, coming here for six months to a year, spending thousands of dollars on laptops, Gucci handbags, clothes, stuff like that. They pay for births in hospitals, private suites, etc. and after the child is born they take the baby back with them.
What you all aren't understanding is just how desperate these mothers are. Practically every article I have seen on the topic shows a female baby being born over here; because of China's one child policy and the culture which declares girls 'worthless', if these women give birth in China they are looking at a forced abortion or possible partial-birth abortions--if you have a girl who dies you get a special permit from the government to try again for a boy, and the decision or a partial-birth abortion can be made by a father who wants a boy without consulting the mother. A mother making sure her girl child is born off Chinese soil is potentially saving her life. There are also income tax breaks and incentives for having boy and not so much for girl, and aborting girls can be done free, courtesy of the Chinese government.
Since China does not allow their citizens to have dual citizenship, the jus soli right this child has will have to be hidden by the child until the child comes of age. She then has the option of staying in China or emigrating to another country. These parents are hoping that their girl children will choose to emigrate; the difference in the gender ratio in China is approaching epidemic proportions--there are now 30 million more males in China than females. When these girl children grow up a Chinese male can rape her, get her pregnant, then she can be forced to marry the man who raped her. The man who raped her will not have to pay the woman's family a 'dowry' because the girl is not 'pure' and she is going to be castigated for 'bringing shame onto her family'.
Now, for everyone who is going to whip out the old 'anchor baby' argument--that the child will then bring over all her relatives, etc. You have to remember that these people are China's elite. CHINA CAN CHOOSE NOT TO LET THEM LEAVE. In fact, even if the child chooses to emigrate here to the US the Chinese government can hold the family hostage and threaten to kill the family if the child does not return.
And even if the child DOES apply for Mom, Dad, Uncle Tom and Cousin Bobby to come over, you're assuming that they have the $10k per person, and you're also assuming that they all WANT to come, and you're also assuming that all of them will pass a background check.They must never have broken a law in their home country in order to come here--and if these people even hinted that they waned to go to America think the Chinese government couldn't slip something in the background check results?
And all of this even assumes that the child will want to emigrate here. Jut because the child has a choice doesn't mean they will choose the US--maybe the child wants to stay in China. The boys certainly would--they are little princes over there!
CalChi said:
How should the United States determine who is a citizen? Easy -- the same way that most other countries do. Is one of the parents of the newborn baby a U.S. citizen? If so, the baby will have automatic U.S. citizenship. If not, the baby will be a citizen of the same country where his/her parents have citizenship.
What if the baby is an abandoned infant with no paperwork and no legal parents? Legally the infant is stateless and belongs nowhere, to no one and has no rights anywhere and no home. Yes, it does happen, I'm one of them.
I have to take exception to a couple things you said, Amanda. For one thing, most of the scenarios you cited are dated, although not all. And it is increasingly easy for Chinese citizens to travel outside of China. All you have to do is see that 10,000 mainland Chinese babies were born in Hong Kong last year to know that. My husband never stepped outside of China before he emigrated twenty years ago, but his son went to Hong Kong on vacation with a group of friends several years ago, and another Chinese researcher I know who is working here has been visited by his Mom twice in three years. Our niece's son lives in Finland, and she goes there regularly from China to visit him. None of these people are China's "elite."
The difficulty for many Chinese was getting a US visa. It used to be unusual to hold a passport in China, but that has become much easier, and if the baby were a US citizen, he or she wouldn't need a US visa. And as for China slipping something in the background check, that is pretty far-fetched. Unless the hopeful immigrant is working in a secret facility (which my husband was--and he managed to get a visa decades ago) or something similar, China has other things to do. So the reality is quite a bit different than the old days.
I am sorry that your plight was so difficult, but the picture you paint of China as a whole is inaccurate.
So basically like in the USA, we have 1 set of rules for the Wealthy, and 1 set for the poor..... since this opportunity isn't available for all chinese, the Elites can circumvent their own laws by comming here, popping out a child and returning home.
Imagine what the world would be like if the wealthy had to live by the same rules they impose upon the poor.
This statement is false, just another deliberately misleading bald-faced lie.
There are many more aliens who "actually" come to the US seeking disappearance into the crowd for themselves and citizenship by birth for their late-term children than anyone suspects, far more than any so-called "social watchdog" group has ever reported, far more than even the most ideological "conservative" would ever dare suspect, not only despite what the communist leftists want you to believe, but often very much BECAUSE the communists are deliberately misleading people about this issue that is so dear to them as they seek to supplant every predominantly Christian population in the world with floods of ignorant and impoverished "workers" sympathetic to the false promises of the phony utopia commonly referred to as the "worker's paradise" in which the only thing the soon-to-be disenchanted and therefore murderous rebels--errr, that is I mean "cannon fodder" ---errr, that is I mean, "harmless migrants" have to lose is their peace, their home, their health, their self-respect, their dignity, their families, their native roots, their hopes, their dreams, and their lives--all for nothing more than lies and the rotting bagfuls of false promises that are the communist's familiar stock-in-trade.
Wow. So now someone knows how America feels?
Actually, a made up problem in the US--not a huge problem here at all despite what conservatives want your to believe.
Yes, it IS a huge problem here, despite what liberals want you to believe.
Ha Bart you have not visited a California welfare office in recent years....
LOL Bart, you obviously don't live in CA, AZ or TX! Go there and try to make a decent living doing landscaping without using illegals like you could 30 years ago and see how you do. Or go to any Los Angeles school and see who is there.
There are a lot of illegals having babies in the hospital I used to work in. A lot!
Wow, Bart. As a 10-year resident of Tucson, I would tell you that you are terribly uninformed or just spouting nonsense. The problem is every bit as bad as covered in national media such as MSNBC.
Add NYC to that list Chris!
What if China ships 1 billion women to US to give birth? US would becomes the most populated country in no time.
It doesn't make sense to grant a baby a citizenship of the country just because it's born in that country.
but China won't ship 1 billion women to the US so problem solved!
wrong. they are already coming for this, just not yet in billions.
You do realize that would mean changing the US Constituion. The 14th Amendment. That takes a Constitutional Convention. That could also open up the 2nd Amendment ? Do you really want to go there ?
As long as we're having the convention, we can add equal rights for women, an amendment that would explain to our government that corporations are NOT individuals, and finally, and most important for the survival of the US as we have known it, an amendment that strictly limits campaign spending. So let's convene that Constitutional Convention. How about BEFORE the election?
we don't worry about the 2nd amendment because the government knows that there will be a massive civil war if they try to edit/remove it, same goes for our right to choice and the other ones. protect your rights from anyone who would even think of taking them away and use full hostile prejudice towards them at all costs for they are the peoples worst enemy.
jim, go back and actually read the Constitution. Amending the Constitution, including removing an amendment does NOT require a convention, just 2/3 of the House and Senate and ratification by 2/3rds of the States.
"Anchor Baby Battle". Mexico vs United States. Mexicans have been coming here to have their babies for free for years! Just take one look at LAUSD! ALL Mexican!
I bet you love Mexican food once in a while, don"t ya?
I like Chinese food too! So what's your point Karaivex?
i feel for hong kong i mean besides mainland chinese going there and on top of that their air polution is bad thanks to china ( number 1 pollutor in the world ) bart conner you are obessed with this conservatives this and that give me a break. Im neither side but sometimes i see people type stuff and blame it on one side even if its not true they just hate that side that much they say anything. both sides are bad
I'm amazed to see people write that Illegal Immigration and Anchor Babies are a "made up" problem for the Conservative agenda? Let me guess..... I am going out on a limb and assuming that these same individuals are the same ones crying about how a recent crackhead with a used up voice, smoked herself into her current residence of 6 feet below? There are consequences in life and no matter what garbage laws you pass to ease the plight of the stupid.... there will always be stupid people making stupid decisions.
Yep, Bart Connor is an i diot!!!
Luke ....... did not take you long to bash did it? What does she have to do with this conversation ..... and yeah I am going to call you what you are. R A C I S T!!!!!!!!!!!! TURD!!!!!!
The term "racist" lost it's severity in the early nineties when people started overusing it. Although I agree that he shouldn't be insulting Whitney Houston... assuming thats who were talking about. I'm certainly no liberal, and I hate to see her go.
"Chinese Anchor Babies IN Hong Kong?".......Hummm.....Chinese anchor babies being hatched in San Francisco Birthing Homes? Jeeeze? I wonder what the Chinese are up to? The Chinese seem to think that they can just spread their seed across the globe as long as no one says NO!
Our illustrious representatives in Congress do continuous battle with each other showing their constituents just who the "Boss" is while OUR country is continuously being invaded by Chinese "Vacationers" and interlopers from south of our border crapping their kids out on U.S. soil while our Congressmen and women sit idly by with their thumbs up their asses. The call to end this "Free-for All" has met deaf ears in the halls of "Foggy Bottom" while the American people stew in their anger and incredulity. With Congress's single digit popularity rating, it is little wonder why the people of this country are so pissed off. TIME FOR A CHANGE!
Hong Kong - we know how you feel! Stinks, doesn't it...
I do understand the one time need for the Anchor baby law but that time has LONG past. There is a law still on the books, in Florida I think, that says if you drive at night someone must sit on the hood of your car with a lantern but that law has also outlived its usefulness. Now Anchor Babies do not add to our freedoms but takes it away. By the way I am a Liberal, NOT a Conservative but I can think and I can see the damage being done. Ask China or Mexico if they will allow Anchor Babies there. When they changed the immigration laws in 1965 the problems escalated and continues to do so.
Maybe we can learn from Hong Kong. Our schools and hospitals are overrun by women giving birth to anchor babies. We need to get rid of this relic, otherwise the US will be going down the commode, if it's not already too late. If only African-Americans would step up to the plate and put pressure on the politicians, would anyone take action to close the loophole. This was put in place to ensure that children of slaves, who were property, were citizens. Not so we could be overrun by Mexicans, Chinese and all of the other nationalities that take advantage of our stupid politicians. It would be nice if Americans received the free healthcare that illegals received.
I wonder who popularized the term "anchor baby?"
The term "anchor children" was used to describe the children of Vietnamese immigrants (boat people) in the 70's. It was resurrected to refer to the children of Mexican immigrants in the 00's when immigration legislation started to be introduced.
The problem is people are taking advantage of good intention laws that were on the books for totally different situations.
Now people from one venue want a free ride from the economy of another venue.
Time to close this type of loophole.
I agree with the many post above that the US should stop allowing the nationalizaton of children of illlegal immigrants. Unfortunately our politicians on the right prefer the status quo for and have done so for years. This of course has been done for economic reasons. Maintaining, a steady stream of individuals seeking opportunity that are caught in "limbo"with no rights to petition government nor their employers for grievances because of the fear of deportation. It is not society's responsibility to burden the cost of cheap labor while corporations pocket the profits. The same should apply to China both in Hong Kong and and here in the US. Change in our society came with the civil war and change in other societies should also be allowed to occur.
This is the reason we can't accomplish a damn thing. You're blaming it all on "the right" when its "the left" who wants to open the borders and allow the rest of the frigging world to take up squatter's rights here in the U.S. and annihilate our resources the way they have those of their home countries.
It's a problem that BOTH parties are co-conspirators in maintaining. Get that through your politically polarized posterior, which is where your brains seem to be on this subject.
His name is Newt Gingrich!
This is identical to the US problem: the overwhelming majority of Citizens want an end to our "anchor baby" and "chain migration" laws while our timid politicians refuse to give us a national E-Verify law effectively forcing self-removal of 11 million illegals, or a truly sealed border policy. Meanwhile, we Taxpayers are shouldering the costs of anyone who enters Our Country, legal or not.
It's well-past time to return to our pre-1963 policy of a "national origin quota system", wherein English-speaking Europeans were the preferred majority; continuing policies since then continue to introduce the multi-cultural/multi-lingual societal discord which has toppled every country which has allowed it throughout history.
Tens of thousands of the wealthy Chinese come to the United States every year to have their babies on American soil to get the benefits of being a citizen of the United States, yet also being a citizen of China.
There are agencies in China that do NOTHING but provide these services for the wealthy..........
Imagine the advantages of capitalism involved.
And you hear NOTHING about it from either political party.
And we wonder why our country is falling apart at the seams>
I don't know if you guys can read Chinese. You can use google translate. The following is a news report by an America-based newspaper describing how RICH Chinese pregnant women gave birth in America for free! The birth agencies hired lawyers to help these women to get benefits.
goo.gl/QkfAw
They really need to use clean energy, look at the smog. Who would want to breathe that?
on the same token, who would want to live near a coal or fracking site here? cough!
Any persons giving birth in a different country, where they are not legally a citizen, should only get a certificate of live birth as documentation for the legal country's record. This does not give the child citizenship. If the mother of the child is not a legal citizen then citizenship can not be given.
Our policy was dictated by the "slavery" era......Its was meant to give all of the children of slaves the "right of citizenship" that were born here.
And PLEASE, you History buffs....Don't pick that statement apart....This isn't a debating platform!
But our policy should have changed decades ago...It would solve a lot of the problems we have today.
Last time I checked if a baby is born in US with Chinese parents, he/she will have to decide by the age of 18 (or is it 21) to claim his citizenship. If he/she chooses American citizenship, then he/she will have to forfeit his/her Chinese citizenship. There's no such thing as keeping both. Also, many of these parents plan on raising there children in China, it is very possible that by the time the child turns 18, he would have no interest in actually becoming an American citizen, especially with China's economic upturn.
JayeGinn, these laws are being twisted and used for the wrong reasons. Some times the good thing is not also the right thing. If I were a smart person wanting what Americans have without going to the trouble of coming in legally, having a child here and getting them to return at the age of 18 would be the way to do it. Most of us have NO problem helping others right up to the time they used that generosity against us. I am a PROUD LIBERAL but if you screw me over enough I will fight back and the Anchor baby laws do more harm than good.
Who pays for the birth and care here of Anchor Babies?
roc:
For the Chinese involved in birth tourism, they are paying for their children's birth here in our hospitals.
Actually, US citizenship once acquired cannot ever be revoked by the US government without the citizen's consent since its enshrined as a right in the Constitution. So if the US government asks the citizen if s/he intends to renounce it, s/he can say "no" and that's it.
To know more: check the Wiki regarding US nationality law (go to "Loss of citizenship" if you wish to get to the point).
About the person's Chinese citizenship, that's between the person and the Chinese government, not Washington, since the policy permits multiple citizenship. Washington doesn't care if a US citizen has any other citizenship because it always sees that person as US citizen wherever s/he may be around the world. It is possible that the person can hide his US citizenship from the Chinese officials too. I know a few people who manage to pull that off, although they're not all Chinese or anchor babies. Just lucky enough to have at least a parent who is foreign-born and permanent resident or they're foreign-born themselves coming from countries that do not recognize multiple citizenship and revoke it upon acquisition of another citizenship (just like China).
Actually, US citizenship once acquired cannot ever be revoked by the US government without the citizen's consent since its enshrined as a right in the Constitution. So if the US government asks the citizen if s/he intends to renounce it, s/he can say "no" and that's it.
-------------------------------------------------------
wanna bet?...click on the link below.
List of denaturalized former citizens of the United States
Thank You Amanda, I was more so referring to all anchor babies in general.
JFrost, Angela D:
If the new bill coming up through the House and senate passes, then yes, citizenship after that is going to be able to be revoked.
HR3166, also called the Enemy Expatriation Act, is going to give the government the right to strip you of your citizenship, whether natural born or naturalized, if you are suspected of 'engaging in or advocating any act which runs counter to the interests of the us or its allies.'
Look at how all of you are referring to the 'illegals' on this message board, and I've heard even worse. I've heard people threaten to 'shoot all illegals on sight'. If this law passes, anyone who is suspected of terrorism or any act that runs counter to the interests of the US or its allies can suddenly be declared 'illegal' and have their citizenship stripped from them without a trial or any way to defend yourself from the charges. How are you going to feel when suddenly you are illegal, you have no rights, and since you can't be deported anywhere, you're 'stuck' in a deportation camp. Like I was.
And just in case you didn't know--Homeland Security deems 'lawful acts of civil disobedience' like the Occupy protestors a threat to national security. They've also classified alternate media, animal rights activists, militias, anti-technology extremists (those people who don't even allow electricity in their homes) as well as food and weapons stockpilers (doomsday preppers).
Hong Kong is experienceing the same problem we have had here for years, first with Mexican and now with Chinese mothers as well. I am neither Conservative or Liberal, but I think we need to do away with "Anchor Babies." If a baby is born with at least one parent being a US Citizen, then they are US citizens. If neither parent is a US citizen, they are denied US Citizenship and are a citizen of what ever country their parents are from. NO more Anchor Babies! I am tired of people coming here illegally and being allowed to stay because of their Anchor babies, or coming here to have babies so that the baby automatically is a citizen. Besides, if the baby is born here to illegal imigrants, when they are automatically citizens, who do you think foots the bill? I would assume, since they are citizens they get Medicaid as soon as they are born -- so WE, American tax payers, foot the bill.
Tonya:
And what if the child has no parents, legally?
I was an abandoned infant left on the doorstep of an orphanage in a country that deems girls 'worthless'. ecause I was female, no effort was ver made to find out who my paents were, where I came from, or who I was. An IL-born Army vet and his wife brought me to the US and adopted me, filed all the paperwork with immigration them passed away before they told me. 18 years after my adoption was filed, USCIS finds they lost/misplaced/misfiled my adoption paper and come to me looking for it. I have no idea what they are talking about and I told them so. They declared me illegal, stripped me of my rights, and threw me in a deportation camp. Then they found out there was nowhere they could deport me to--I legally don't have a home country. There is nowhere I can 'go back' to. So at eighteen they told me I would spend the rest of my life in deportation camp, 'stuck' because there was nowhere to go back to and they wouldn't let me go back to my life unless I could produce that adoption paper.
Dad was in the military and we moved around a lot, so there ere a lot of places where that paper could have been filed. It took me three years, but I finally found it.
There are a lot of stateless people out there like me. Where would you suggest we go, what do you suggest we do? Jump off a ship in the middle of the ocean and drown?
Its a big issue here, whether their mother comes by plane or sneaks across the boarder. Once the baby is born on U.S. soil its granted all rights and privileges as a baby whom both parents are U.S. citizens. Funny thing though we are spending to care for these anchor babies but we have people that have lived in the U.S. for generations going largely ignored. What is wrong with that picture?????????
You can thank the GOP for that, they're the ones that are out to get the poor. We could have a good set of social safety nets, but instead we have basically none for most people and the ones we do have are woefully inadequate.
We have a right to citizenship the way it is to prevent the government from discriminating and to ensure that everybody has citizenship somewhere. Individuals who are abandoned or lost could very easily end up being deported to a random country if nobody knows what citizenship they should hold.
I can NOT stop laughing my head off!!! WELCOME to OUR world!!! What that hell did you all think... that this was ONLY an AMERICAN nightmare??? Hell no!!!
AND I read that JAPAN is not doing that good either with THEIR immigration problems... so there you go people... ENJOY OUR NIGHTMARES!!!
And in the U.S. is NOT only the Mexicans... or other Hispanics... there are the Iranians, Somalies... Arabs... Iraquies... and every other Tom, Dick and @!$%#S!!!
I believe in LEGAL immigration (I was one of the LEGAL ones a LONG TIME AGO)... and not the anchor babies... or other illigals... and that goes for the Irish and Canadians too.
Wishing them GOOD LUCK!!! :o)
American Indians were excluded from the Civil Rights Act of 1866 on the grounds that even though they were partially subject to the jurisdiction of the United States Government, their ALLIGENCE was to their separate tribes and under this reasoning were considered of DIVIDED ALLIGENCE which applies equally to exclude the children of RESIDENT aliens, legal as well as illegal, from BIRTHRIGHT citizenship. Today's regulations issued by Homeland Security AND The Justice Department stipulate: " A person born in the United States to a foreign diplomatic officer accredited to the United States, as a matter of international law, is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. That person is not (can NOT be) a United States citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment."
In 1866 Senator Trumbull of Illinois, one of the principal authors of the citizenship clauses in the 1866 Act and the 14th Amendment said that " subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" meant subject to its COMPLETE jurisdiction, meaning " NOT owing allegiance to anyone else (any other country)." So people of Indian parents had TRIBAL allegiances and were excluded from birthright citizenship. In 1884 the U.S. Supreme Court held that children born to Indian Parents were not born "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction because "That person could not change his status by his own will WITHOUT THE ACTION OR CONSENT OF THE UNITED STATES." and " NO ONE CAN BECOME A CITIZEN OF A NATION WITHOUT ITS CONSENT." There can not be a more forceful denial of consent to a person's citizenship than to make the source of that person's presence in the country ILLEGAL.
It is estimated (through U.S. Congress testimony) that upwards of TEN PERCENT of all births in resent years are to illegal immigrant mothers. Birthright citizenship, therefore, is not only without our governments consent, but it is in violation of U.S. Law.
Our Congress needs to fix this "Free Citizenship" free-for-all. It's LONG overdue.
WOMEN had the right to vote BEFORE American Indians won the right to citizenship, which they only aquired in 1924.
They were thought to be citizens of their tribal nation, and tribal lands.
This is idiotic. This is nothing at all like illegal Mexican immigrants in the US. Hongkong and China aren't two different countries. They're one country. China has some dumb laws that prevent people from moving freely between its countryside and its cities (not just between the Mainland and Hongkong, but all of their cities). Because of internal treaties and agreement between its central government and its special administrative districts, some internal borders require checkpoints and require licensing of residency. That's strictly an internal problem. They're one country, one people. This is as stupid as New York City trying to ban people from Western Pennsylvania from trying to move there 'cause those Appalachians dress badly and speak with strange countrified accents. In this case, BOTH the residents of Hongkong and the anchor babies are all citizens of one country - the People's Republic of China.
Hongkongers need to get over themselves. And Americans need to get serious about stopping illegal cross-national immigration (as opposed to the silly Chinese intra-national kind).
Btw, mainland China has its own real illegal immigration problem.. with workers sneaking in from Africa and the Mekong nations to take agricultural jobs that the Chinese are abandoning as they get richer.
Go figure, Native Americans get screwed but babies (and parents) of illegals reap the rewards.