Nearly 400K Anchor Babies Born in 2019, Exceeding U.S. Births in 48 States

Close to 400,000 anchor babies were born in the United States in 2019 as an executive order to end birthright citizenship gets kicked down the road for another year by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Analysis conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies revealed in 2018 that about 300,000 U.S.-born children of illegal aliens are born every year. These children, often referred to as “anchor babies,” immediately obtain American citizenship and anchor their illegal or foreign parents in the country.

In addition, about 72,000 anchor babies are born to foreign tourists, foreign visa workers, and foreign students every year — all of whom obtain immediate American citizenship simply for being born within the parameters of the country.

Altogether, about 372,000 anchor babies are estimated to have been born last year despite a commitment by Trump to sign an executive order ending the nation’s “anchor baby policy” that incentivizes pregnant migrant women to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in the hopes of securing American citizenship for their children.

This indicates that there were more anchor babies born in 2019 than births in each of the 50 states except California and Texas. California residents deliver about 455,000 babies a year, while Texans deliver about 379,000 babies a year, just slightly more than the total annual number of anchor babies born.

For example, there were more than 34 times as many anchor babies born nationwide than American children born in the state of Delaware and nearly five times as many anchor babies born nationwide than the American children born in Arizona.

To date, the U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled that the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens must be granted automatic American citizenship, and a number of legal scholars dispute the idea.

Many leading conservative scholars argue the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not provide mandatory birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens or noncitizens, as these children are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction as that language was understood when the 14th Amendment was ratified.

For more than a year, Trump has signaled that he has reviewed signing an executive order to end birthright citizenship, otherwise known as the “anchor baby policy.”

Today, there are at least 4.5 million anchor babies in the U.S. under 18-years-old, exceeding the annual roughly four million American babies born every year and costing American taxpayers about $2.4 billion every year to subsidize hospital costs.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.