Households headed by illegal aliens have a relatively easy time accessing taxpayer-funded welfare programs thanks to the nation’s anchor baby policy that gives birthright American citizenship to the United States-born children of illegal aliens, research concludes.

Center for Immigration Studies researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler issued an analysis this month showing that while fewer than 4-in-10 households headed by native-born Americans use at least one major form of welfare, nearly 60 percent of households headed by illegal aliens are on welfare.

Though illegal aliens, themselves, are barred from accessing most welfare programs, their U.S.-born children — commonly referred to as “anchor babies” — make getting welfare an easy task.

High rates of welfare use among illegal aliens “primarily reflect their generally … low-incomes, coupled with the large share who have U.S.-born children who are eligible for all welfare programs from birth,” Camarota and Zeigler wrote:

The high use of welfare by illegal immigrant-headed households may seem implausible. However, there are several things to consider: First, more than half of all illegal immigrant households have one or more U.S.-born children. [Emphasis added]

…

The reality is that illegal immigrants are included in the [2022 Survey of Income and Program Participation], a large share of them are poor, and they or their U.S.-born children have welfare eligibility; and many take advantage of this eligibility. [Emphasis added]

Anchor babies are rewarded with birthright citizenship despite their parents having no legitimate ties to the U.S. Fewer than two decades later, when the child is considered an adult, they can sponsor their parents and foreign relatives for green cards — anchoring their family in the U.S. for generations.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled that the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens must be granted birthright citizenship, and many legal scholars dispute the idea.

Today there are about 5.8 million anchor babies in the U.S. — a population more than twice the size of Chicago, Illinois. Annually, anchor babies and their illegal alien parents cost American taxpayers more than $150 billion.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.