22 thoughts on “Looking for Stories from Accidental Americans”

1. I believe it is a mis interpetation of the 14th amendment and its intention to grant citizenship to anyone who is born in the U.S. If the parents are citizens of another country, the newborn children should be a citizen of the country of the parents and not the U.S. I know the intension was to grant full natural born status to ex slaves, after the civil war of 1861-1865. The Supreme Court of the United States was wrong. The only way to correct the bad decision is to pass a law taking away the citizenship of those born as anchor babies.

2. “If the parents are citizens of another country, the newborn children should be a citizen of the country of the parents and not the U.S.”

   That’s what the UK said. That’s why the US entered the War of 1812 on Napoleon’s side.

   “The Supreme Court of the United States was wrong.”

   The Supreme Court already said so. In Afroyim v. Rusk the Supreme Court said the Supreme Court was wrong in earlier rulings.

   However, the matter of CONSENT should be paramount. The Expatriation Act of 1868 needs to be upheld.

   Someone should figure out the definition of the United States though. The definition in the 14th Amendment is so clear in its invisible ink, that’s why US territories aren’t part of the US, but FBAR statutes define the US to include US territories. Sometimes DC is a territory — each state sends 2 senators to the US Senate, how many senators does DC send? Maybe persons born in DC are naturalized at birth by act of Congress, like persons born in Puerto Rico, like former presidential candidate Barry Goldwater born in Arizona Territory.

3. What’s the difference between an anchor baby and an accidental American? Both deserve US citizenship by virtue of where they were born – whether they deserve reward or punishment for it depends completely on where they reside.

   Many accidentals ask themselves “what did I do to deserve US citizenship?”.

4. “What’s the difference between an anchor baby and an accidental American?”

   My understanding is two things.
   First, intent – anchor babies become Americans on purpose, accidentals are Americans due to circumstance.
   Second, anchor babies, reside physically in the USA, thus anchoring themselves and their parents (i.e. allowing them to live legally in the USA) whereas accidentals have lived at most for a short time in the USA and have never been integrated into American society.

5. Regarding intent, I was referring to the intent of the parents, not the anchor baby. The baby is the anchor for the parents.

6. The *anchor baby* chose where s/he was born and to whom s/he was born?

7. The anchor (or ball-and-chain depending on how you look at it) is really for the child, as the child doesn’t entitle the parent to any special status, as far as I know.

8. Not sure if it gives the parents any special deal for themselves, but the point still is that they are anchoring the baby to the USA – i.e. they birth the child in the USA intentionally.

9. From Wikipedia,

   There is a popular misconception that the child’s U.S. citizenship status legally helps the child’s parents and siblings to quickly reclassify their visa status (or lack thereof) and to place them on a fast pathway to acquire lawful permanent residence and eventually United States citizenship.[9][10] Current U.S. federal law prevents anyone under the age of 21 from being able to petition for their non-citizen parent to be lawfully admitted into the United States for permanent residence. At best, the child’s family would need to wait for 21 years before being able to use their child’s US citizenship to modify their immigration status, and is thus, unhelpful for immigration purposes.

10. So I guess the main difference between accidentals and anchor babies is the intent of the parents. In the former, parents have no intent to make their child an American, whereas in the latter, birth on US soil is intentional in order to acquire US citizenship for the child.

11. Also from Wikipedia,
    A similar term, “passport baby”, has been used in Canada for children born through so-called “maternity” or “birth tourism”.[7][8]

12. “What’s the difference between an anchor baby and an accidental American?”

    Please.
    The difference is the intent that the PARENTS have regarding the child’s citizenship(s). Either way, it’s something done to the child.

13. …which will make my son a child of birth tourism. Got it. He, though, had no choice in the matter.

14. Calgary, No. Your son is not a product of ‘birth tourism’ unless you specifically travelled to Canada in order to give birth to him so that he would have Canadian citizenship.

15. A thought-provoking video from dear Victoria’s Franco-American Flophouse: http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.ca/2015/10/my-experience-is-where-im-from.html.

    I am *a local* — a Canadian in Calgary, Alberta. My son is also *a local* — a Canadian in Calgary, Alberta. What of my son is American except the accident of being born in *imaginary boundaries* the son of his mother and his father who were born in different parts of the US but who were at his birth *locals* somewhere else. He has been *a local* of this little part of the big wide world for, now, 41 years.

    Once upon a time both Victoria and I were *locals* of the Pacific Northwest. At that time, that was our world. There are likely children born and growing up there born to whatever made their parents illegal immigrants who, for this time in their lives, are *locals* of that same Seattle. They may know nothing of their parents’ homeland. Thank goodness a child called a *border baby* in that region is still entitled to obtaining a birth certificate so necessary for school, health care and many other things in their little lives — unlike in Texas http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/us/illegal-immigrant-birth-certificates.html — no birth certificate for that innocent child who had no choice in either where or to whom s/he was born.

    Common sense and some sort of compassion seems to me what are lacking and it poses some pretty serious questions about the legal or illegal refugee or immigrant. What are the answers from our God-given brains that should be able to figure out better ways? (Sorry, just thinking out loud.)

16. @Shovel

    I didn’t ask the question with the assumption that there’s no difference.

17. Intent is a slippery slope and I wonder if all the stories about anchor babies get it right. I have read numerous reports about Chinese people going to the U.S. to give birth, allegedly with the intent of acquiring citizenship for their children, but then last week a radio commentator on the BBC said in an off the cuff remark regarding the dropping of the one baby limit that having a baby abroad had been one way of getting around it in the past since foreign-born children didn’t count (she had met a woman who had gone to Canada, so foreign citizenship wasn’t the driver). So if Chinese women stop going to the U.S. to have babies, it may or may not have anything to do with FATCA.

18. @Calgary, Speaking of Victoria who I understand has moved from France to Japan, I hope her family and friends were out of harms way of the tragic attacks.

19. I believe Victoria and family are out of harm’s way. Thoughts for that family and others we know of in France — to all affected directly in this Paris horror and to all anywhere in this insane world climate.

20. The Paris event will be used to further restrict freedom — that’s a loss for the French people — and to further engage the French military (plus NATO) in Syria — that’s a loss for the Syrian people (more deaths, more damage to their country’s infrastructure, more refugees created). The losses will keep adding up and yet someone is winning. You have to ask yourself “Cui bono?” and remember that fear is an instrument of control. This event and others like it are far more complex and go much deeper than the main stream media will ever report. Look elsewhere if you dare.

21. Funny that the Japanese government’s recent manipulations to reduce freedom aren’t due to Aum Shinrikyo gassing Tokyo’s subways in 1995.

22. @Embee;

    He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither.

    Ben Franklin