What Should We Do With Anchor Babies?

The subject of anchor babies has been in the news lately, as Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant known for taking sanctuary inside a Chicago church, has been recently deported. She has already been deported once, and has an 8 year old son, Saul. Saul is an American citizen, and his mother chose to leave him in the United States rather than take him back to Mexico with her.

Some people think that Ms. Arellano should have been allowed to stay in the United States, since she has a son that is a United States citizen. However, doing so would only encourage more people to come to the United States to have children, because doing so would give them a free path to living in the United States.

The Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868, and was originally intended to give citizenship to all former slaves and children of slaves after the civil war. It was never intended that people desiring their children to have US Citizenship could just show up here and have children. A further unintended consequence of this law is that parents of these so-called "anchor babies" are more likely to be allowed to stay here.

I realize that Mexico isn't the greatest place to live, but then again, it certainly isn't the worst place in the world to live in. Iraq, anyone? How about Darfur? Maybe Ms. Arellano truly believes that having her son living away from her in Chicago while she lives in Mexico is the best life for him. It is also possible, that she is just having a snit in front of the cameras and trying to tell the world "poor me, I can't be with my son!" The truth is, she can be with her son, she just has to have him come to Mexico to be with her. As a US citizen, Saul would be free to return to the United States when he got older.

The whole concept of automatic citizenship for anybody born within a country's borders is not a universal principal. My daughter was born in Italy but she is a United States citizen, and does not have dual citizenship. She has both an Italian and an American birth certificate. That is probably a good thing, because there are some countries where children holding dual citizenship have problems if they ever decide to return to their country of birth. I can't remember what country it was, but one country required military service or something from all its citizens, and if a dual citizen ever came to visit, they would have to fulfill their obligations.

So what should we do with anchor babies? I think that we should amend the constitution to override the provision in the fourteenth amendment providing citizenship to anchor babies, for one. That would be a start. If we pass that law, we still have to deal with the anchor babies that we do have.

However mean it may sound, if the parents are supposed to be deported, they should be deported. Having a child should not usually be a consideration. I suppose there may be some extraordinary circumstances. Let's say a child was very ill or disabled and needed life-saving care that could not be provided in the country of origin. I'm not talking "oh there are no doctors that can treat my son's ADD in the country I come from" because a child is not going to die or anything near that because they don't get their ADD treated. But some children have heart conditions or other organ problems that can not be treated in certain countries. I might make an exception in that particular case. But in most cases, a child can live if they go with their parent to the parent's home of origin.

Military families are sometimes forced to leave their children with grandparents, friends, or other family members while they go off to serve in other parts of the world. These people are not being punished because they broke a law, rather they are making a sacrifice so that we can be safer. Ms. Arellano, like the military, left her child in another country after she was deported. Unlike the military, she had a choice to take her child with her. Also unlike the military, she is not leaving her child in another country because she is a law abiding citizen making a noble sacrifice... rather, she broke a law (more than one actually, she was working at the airport using fraudulent documents) and is suffering the consequences of it.

ID Theft Expected To Increase Because of New Law

Arizona passed a new law recently that should make most of us jump for joy. In order to get hired for a new job, employers have to search for your social security number in a federal database, and it has to match up with your name. This will probably have the effect of having fewer illegal immigrants get jobs, because right now it's quite easy to come up with fraudulent documents. This law goes into effect on January 1st.

That's the good news. However, the unintended consequence of this new law is that there may be more incidences of identity theft as a result of this law. People that want to work either have to do one of several things: work in another state, work under the table, or steal someone's identity. Working under the table will probably happen less often, because the penalty for hiring someone this way is quite stiff. They could lose their business license on the second offense.

So if you live in Arizona, make sure that you check your credit regularly. The AZ Republic, which had an article about identity theft in Sunday's newspaper, had a really good suggestion that I had never though of: instead of getting all three free credit reports at once, get your credit reports at different times of the year, and stagger them. That way you have less time between the times you check it. Don't forget to check your children's credit reports as well. My children have fairly unusual names so it's not as likely that people will want to use them, but you never can be too careful. Since this whole ID theft thing became common, I decided to check theirs at the same time I check mine and dh's.

One last thing I feel I should add: if you do have your identity stolen, you can clear it up. You don't need to hire anybody to do it for you, you can do it yourself. Some companies offer identity theft insurance... it isn't necessary, but whether you get it or not depends on you. Could you be organized enough to send out letters and follow through on them? Would you be willing to spend the time to write letters to creditors to clear up your identity? A few years ago, I did some work to repair my credit. There were some items that didn't belong on my credit report, some addresses on there where I had never lived, etc. I was able to get all the questionable items off my credit report, and so could you. I did have to send off a few Certified, Return Receipt Requested envelopes, which cost a little money, but not as much as it would cost me to pay for identity theft insurance for any meaningful time period. It took a little organization: I kept a portfolio with all my credit correspondence in it, I kept photocopies of all the letters I sent and all of my return receipt stubs. I followed up on people that did not respond. It wasn't that hard. If you need more information about clearing up credit for any reason, I recommend that you visit Creditmania.com. It is a very helpful resource, with sample letters and people that are willing to help answer your questions.