Steve_

Stephen Colbert addresses the subject.

Bearing in mind having a baby in the US doesn't really provide any advantage to the parents.

ian-mstm

That was fun!

Ian

scrubbedexpat099

I can think quite a few starting with free medical care for the birth.

But the perceptions is more important than the reality.

crg

Some people have long term plans, but free high quality medical is an immediate gain.

Awesome Welles

Grappling-Baby! I LOL'd.

Steve_

Have to be pretty damn long-term plans. First off you've got to have done it all legally (i.e. entering and having the baby), otherwise you'd be banned.

Assuming you did enter legally and have the baby as a visitor, the child would have to reach 21 before they could sponsor the parent.

Okay, minor benefit but the reality is that the use of this term encourages people to think that there is a benefit when there really isn't, I've heard Canadians talk about doing it too until I point out the stupidity of it. In Canada in fact if you are born abroad you cannot confer citizenship to your child if they are born abroad too so there is a big disadvantage to doing it. Been a lot of controversy about it in Canada because occasionally the nearest hospital is in the US, or the local hospital has run out of room in intensive care so they get choppered into the US. What then happens when the child grows up and has a child of their own and is in the same situation?

crg

How do you figure? It's not illegal to have a baby in the US.

Filipinos who are siblings of a USC wait longer than that. Also, it's nice to retire to a country that offer services vs. one that doesn't. Call it retirement planning.


I'm not as familiar with Canadian Natz laws, so I don't know if what your saying is accurate or not. Their kid just has to have the next kid in Canada, then the kid may even be both.

Personally, I don't use the anchor baby term because people who don't know the system do think that there is an immediate advantage when there isn't. However, people from all over the world come to the US as "tourists", drop over to the hospital, scribble a US address on a medicaid form, and soak Uncle Sucker out of free high quality medical care, WIC etc. If you don't believe me, drop by the Post office, Social Security office and the health department in LA, South Florida, Chicago, NYC, Houston, Laredo, etc and see who is getting documents for their little bundle of joy. See what ID they have for themselves. Glance over their shoulder and see the B2 I-94. Many of them clearly don't have insurance or the means to pay.

I shipped my family over to the US for the birth of our last child because it's excellent health care and I have insurance. The child needed some surgery a month after birth and is 100% now, but that surgery wouldn't have been available where I live. I don't blame people for seeking out a freebie, but Uncle Sucker needs to do something about it. There should be a ground of inadmissibility that applies to someone who avails themselves of a means tested benefit, and then seeks to enter again.

Please let me know under which ground of inadmissibility someone who enters "illegally" to have a baby would be banned.

scrubbedexpat099

Well its not a crime.

Give up.

S Folinsky

My English former sister-in-law was born in California when her father was seconded to a joint UK-US defense project under an H-1 visa. [No "H-1b" back then].

I also know a few people a tad older than me [I'm a "baby boomer"] born in the US whose parents had been part of the UK shadow "government-in-exile" in the US during the Second World War. From what I understand, consistent with Winnie's "we shall never surrender" rubric, the organization was not official and therefore they did not enter on diplomatic visas -- rather they got green cards and Selective Service somehow looked the other way. [One of these now grown children liked to bitch about the US government since "I was a Marine in Vietnam and I did not fight for this crap." Another was amused when he was stationed in the Deep South while serving the US Navy -- people were shocked to see a US Serviceman speaking with a Cornish accent.]

DavidLemon

That was hilarious.... Preferred the Bond section, loved it

Steve_

If you are illegally present in the US when you have said baby, then you are illegally present and subject to being banned from entry (or deported). If you're banned then no-one can sponsor you without an approved waiver, so there is no benefit in that regard. The whole thing has to have been done legally. Even if it is done legally, you've got to wait for the child to reach 21 before they can be a sponsor.

There is a provision in law about stays of deportation if it would cause harm to US citizen dependents, however that is very tightly drawn and certainly no-one from Canada could coherently make that argument.

But it's not something you necessarily have control over - hospitals near the border have agreements in case they get full, there was a case I heard about on the radio, where a guy who had been born in France but lived in Canada since he was three (his parents were Canadian-born, they had spent time in France when he was a child) had a child (his wife was from some foreign country, I forget which). His child had to receive intensive care, so the mother was choppered down to Great Falls and she gave birth there - so now his child is not a Canadian citizen. There was another one they mentioned where the child had been born in Algeria, which doesn't even recognize births to foreign parents. So the child is stateless, because the parents were not Canadian-born although they'd lived in Canada most of their lives and their parents are Canadian.

Yes it's absolutely fantastic.

Anyone who can buy a return ticket to the US from somewhere remote has enough money to have decent natal care.

DavidLemon

To be fair, the child has to reach 21 before it can petition. Your ban would have expired by then

Steve_

Not necessarily, depends on the length of the ban, but yes possible, but regardless 21 years is a long time to wait, do people really do that?

crg

What ban would apply to a tourist who has a child using medicaid, departed after a couple months and then attempted to come back for another "visit"? Please cite the ground of inadmissibility that would apply?

What ban would apply to someone who entered without inspection, had a child, remained in the US for a couple months, and then departed without being caught. Please cite the ground of inadmissibility that would apply to that person if they were to seek an immigrant visa?

Steve_

Never said there was one, I said if they were illegally present - using that example though there would be serious questions about their non-immigrant intent if they tried to enter as B-2 with a newborn US citizen child.

There's nothing illegal about having a child in the US - there are various good reasons for doing it, nearest ICU being one of the main ones.

Well if the sponsor was their child, the question would come up at their visa interview as to how their child happened to be a US citizen by birth, and if their entry record were blank or there was no record of an entry at the appropriate time then it would be pretty obvious that they were illegally there when it happened. It would be especially obvious if they were a national of a country that requires a visa to enter (e.g. Mexico) and they'd never been issued one.

My point remains as to what is the benefit to the parents of having a child in the US? Even if I buy this "they save money by going to an American ER" argument, there's definitely no benefit to a Canadian to doing that. Is Mexican healthcare that bad? If it is then why do so many Californians go to Mexican hospitals?