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Hello. I am from Australia and have spent the last 35 days traveling throughout the USA by road and have to say I had the best time of my life in your magnificent country. I loved every state and aspect of the holiday.
I read a few articles of the culture of 'baby tourism' whereby women are coming from other countries with the specific intention of giving birth to claim citizenship for that child. Most of what I read has been because the mothers were illegals. I am wondering what happens with legitimate tourists visiting the US who give birth. While I understand that they can still register the birth in the US and are entitled to citizenship, what happens to the parents who are there only as visitors and would normally be expected to leave the country after the 90 day period?
Dont get the wrong idea, I am not planning to try it, but this must happen to legitimate holidayers. Are they allowed to stay or adjust their visa or something?!
Thanks all. Your conversations are very informative....
Under current law, any child born in the United States is a natural-born citizen, whether the mother was here legally or not. The parents don't need to apply for citizenship for the child -- it is automatic. The children born to illegal-immigrant mothers are often called "anchor babies" because a) once they reach age of majority they can sponsor their families for legal immigration, and b) it's a little more difficult politically and legally to deport a parent or parents who have a minor child who is a citizen. However, such parents can be and often are deported. Whether they bring their citizen child with them or leave them here with family or guardians is up to them. There are some rumblings to stop granting automatic citizenship to children born here to foreign parents but I doubt it will ever become law.
If an illegal immigrant Mother has a child in America, the child will automatically be an American citizen. And the Mother would get to stay, but the Father wouldn't. I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
This is why MOST travel agencies/ airlines do not even allow
a woman past a certain stage in pregnancy to travel but people
do slip through the cracks frequently.
I am all for immigration reform. America was founded under the principle of welcoming one and all, we are a nation of immigrants as everyone's family came from somewhere else. If a child is born on U.S. soil he/she is automatically a citizen and I shudder to think of us deporting the parents while leaving the child hear. While it's true that we have a burgoeing population crisis, we can get things under control and spread the wealth. I don't think we have the leadership nor the vision to accomplish this feat.
I would imagine that someone who was truly just visiting here and had a baby, would have no intention of staying in America just because this is where her baby was born. I have no idea how it works; I would hope that the length of a visa could be extended for health reasons, but if there were no complications I can't imagine why the mother and child couldn't go home within a week or so of the birth.
That law is America's way of staying politically correct and catering to the masses. American government doesn't want anyone to dislike America so they try kiss every *ss that croses the border. Sadly enough we take care of immigrants better than our own.
Has the idea ever been floated to amend the current law to something that would say, for instance:
If a child is born within the USA to parents who are (both) citizens of a different country, that child has the right to automatically receive American citizenship when he/she becomes 18 years of age. But before that day, there are no 'rights of citizenship', in other words the baby/child would have the same citizenship status as its' parents. Then at or anytime after age 18, the child could decide whether to claim either his parents' citizenship of wherever, or claim his "deferred" American citizenship.
IMO, considering that American citizens don't get certain rights and obligations until age 18 anyway (voting, Selective Service registration, drivers licenses in most states, being considered an adult by the legal system), why shouldn't it work similarly for babies that just happen to be born here to parents who are not citizens?
In the case where the parents are here illegally, the US-born child would be sent back home with the parents; he/she could return here at or after age 18 with automatic full citizenship, but NOT before. So the 'splitting up of families' would no longer be a problem, and at the same time it would eliminate the 'anchor baby' method of allowing the parents to stay in the US.
Am I the only person this kind of compromise makes sense to??
Supernova7: America can no longer afford to "welcome one and all." This is 2007, not 1907. It's time to end the fantasy of an ever-expanding land base. Our land and its resources are stretched to the max. We cannot get things "under control" and "spread the wealth" if the land is dying. Mexico, by the way, is perfectly capable, financially, of providing its citizens with what they need; it just prefers not to.
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