Illegal immigrants account for around 400,000 births in the United States which roughly translates to one in ten babies born in the U.S. as a whole.
Jon Feere, legal policy analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, testified before a House panel on “birthright citizenship” and revealed his research which showed the rapidly increasing number of illegal choosing to have babies in the U.S.
Feere further testified that the number of children in the U.S. with illegal immigrant parents increased from 2.7 million in 2003 to 4.5 million in 2010 and noted that the birthright policy is intrinsically linked to some of President Obama’s executive amnesties.
“Under the immigration enforcement priorities of the Obama administration, illegal immigrants who give birth to U.S. citizens have become low priorities for deportation. Furthermore, the president’s DAPA program, the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program, currently held up in court would provide benefits to illegal immigrants who gave birth here and allow them to ‘stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation.’ The broad interpretation of the Citizenship Clause forms the basis for these policies,” he said.
Feere also noted that “birthright citizenship” is not a common policy across the globe.
“The United States and Canada are the only two advanced economies as rated by the IMF to grant automatic citizenship to children of illegal aliens,” he said.
