OPINION:
About the same time that the U.S. Supreme Court was hearing arguments over the end of birthright citizenship and determining if President Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, executive order banning the practice passed constitutional and 14th Amendment muster, Pew Research was reporting this: “About 9 percent of U.S. births in 2023 were to unauthorized or temporary legal immigrant mothers.”
The anchor baby matter has hit surge status.
And that was 2023.
In February of 2025, the Taiwan Immigrants’ Global News Network reported this: “According to statistics, about 400,000 ‘anchor babies’ are born in the United States every year, including children born in the United States by illegal immigrants, legal residents and foreigners holding short-term visas.”
The numbers are tough to call; the government doesn’t specifically track births by illegal immigrants on U.S. soil.
But Pew’s findings are significant — shocking, even. Nearly a tenth of babies are born to those who shouldn’t be here, or to those who are only allowed to be here for a short time?
No wonder Democrats are scrambling to prevent a revision of anchor baby policies: This near-10 percent represents a huge swath of would-be voters who could very well, and more like probably would, be dependent on entitlement and social welfare funds. Boom, baby. Let the socialism go forth.
“In 2023,” Pew wrote, “mothers who were unauthorized immigrants or [who] had legal temporary status in the U.S. had 320,000 babies, representing about 9 percent of all 3.6 million babies born in the U.S. that year. About 260,000 of those babies would not have qualified for birthright citizenship if Trump’s executive order had already been in effect.”
By the numbers, about 245,000 would have been excluded from automatic citizenship because they were born to illegal immigrants and another 15,000 would have been excluded because they were born to those with only temporary allowances to be in the country.
“Between 2006 and 2023, there were about 5.1 million births to unauthorized immigrant mothers,” Pew wrote.
A Supreme Court ruling that rubber stamps America’s anchor baby policy could lead to thousands — millions — billions more pregnant women coming to this country to give birth.
“We are the only country in the world STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright Citizenship,’” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post after listening to oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara at the Supreme Court.
As Trump correctly pointed out, the 14th Amendment has been incorrectly applied to justify the awarding of citizenship to anyone and everyone who’s born on U.S. land.
From the National Archives: “Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people. Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. A major portion of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States,’ thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.”
As they do with everything, leftists — Democrats — have twisted the Constitution and its original intents to mean whatever is necessary to advance their anti-America agenda through the courts, through government, through society.
They’re using it nowadays to welcome in illegal immigrants to give birth to babies who will then become the next batch of tax-paid Democrat voters — and who can then be further exploited by the left to fight for the granting of citizenship to the family members. Thus, the term anchor baby. Once born, the child becomes the foundational stone for leftists — Democrats — to demand citizenship for the parents, for the grandparents, for the extended family.
Voila, more Democrat voters, more Democrat voters, more Democrat voters.
Trump’s fight for the common-sense application of border policy and the 14th Amendment is crucial to the fate of the nation.
If the justices rule against his order, they will send a message to the would-be moms of the world that goes like this: Come here, give birth here, and there’s absolutely nothing the government can ever, ever do. Democrats will make sure of it.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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