Can you create a less offensive term for "anchor babies"?

Grappling Hook Baby

why the term is offensive… ehhhh, it feels like people will take offense to anything if they can find a reason to.

I suppose actual anchor babies find it offensive that it implies that the only reason they were born was for their parents to stay in the United States and not because mommy and daddy loved each other so very much to the extent that they had an overflow of love that they desired to share that love with a little devil brat munchkin mandrake root baby. But I am totally throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks here.

Naming a baby? How do you go get more offensive then that? A fucking new born? They didn’t really have a choice in the matter did they. You assholes trying to use this for political traction are absolute assholes.

“Babies” is appropriate

As I tweeted about a half hour ago:

Hey @JebBush, it’s not “anchor babies”, it’s “my fellow Americans.”

How about “baby” or “child”? The offspring of an immigrant isn’t privy to the decision-making process of their mother entering a country illegally. I don’t know how this works in other countries, but in the US, if a child is born on US soil, they are a US citizen.

The mother still has to go through the legal process of applying for citizenship. Having given birth to a child in the US doesn’t expedite her case. It may even make matters worse, given the general attitude of illegal immigrants today.

^^^ Actually having a baby as a US citizen helps a lot. Mothers and fathers are in the highest priority class for gaining a Green Card. It doesn’t insure you will get in immediately but you will have a much easier and shorter time to get in.

Thus the term ‘Anchor Baby’.

By having a baby in the US you have a hook into this country even if you go back home. Of course under Obama policies you need not go home. The US is the only country in the world that has this policy. It’s not Jeb Bush nor anyone here that is using this term in a disparaging way but rather the parents of the anchor baby that are leveraging the baby to cheat the system. Tourism is targeting us for this reason.

@Jaxk, I don’t think that is true about the parents and siblings getting an easier entrance towards US citizenship if a child/sibling is born on American soil. The article cited doesn’t support this, unless I missed something.

Here is more information on the subject.

Yeah, how about first generation citizens.

The term would to me, be viewed as offensive on a couple of grounds, frustration of the government that someone can play by the rules and yet do an end around on their immigration laws by having a baby that tethers the parents to the US even if they came illegally because you can’t just deport a US citizen for no reason, and especially an innocent defenseless child, who happens to be a US citizen. So, since you can’t really sock it to the parents without harming the child (a US citizen), the next best thing is to malign the parents even if the mud smears on the child, by calling their child an anchor baby, as if to tell the parents ”your ass would be back on the boat, or jet, if it were not for your US citizen child protecting you”.

Many countries don’t have this policy. Certainly not the case here. Even an unwed foreign mother and her child born here can leave. Even if the father is Norwegian. Both parents need to be Norwegian for the child to be considered Norwegian. Thing is they apply for asylum and their children are born here and only know life here and perhaps 11 years later, the whole family gets deported. I think that is cruel. Norway has been deporting record numbers with this recent conservative government. Sweden seems to do a better job. They take more asylum seekers and have fewer resources. They seem to have a different attitude.

Isn’t trump’s son an anchor baby? I mean he married a mail-order bride from Slovenia or something right?

As much as I prefer the innocent child not have a label like that, I’ll go a little off on a tangent and say I think the US should seriously reconsider their possibly that being born here makes you a citizen (jus soli). Most of the countries in the Americas, the new world, had and have that policy for a variety of reasons, one obvious one is the Americas had so much immigration, but many other countries don’t have that policy.

I guess you can say first generation child of illegal immigrants? A new one or two word term or expression? I can’t think of anything. We did switch from illegal alien to illegal immigrant, maybe someone will come up with something besides anchor baby one day that catches on.

I can’t remember saying anchor baby, I don’t use that expression.

Conversations with foreigner co-workers in Social Services have not indicated to me that being a foreign mother or foreign parent of a US-born baby makes it easier to get a green card or any type of permanent residency or citizenship. I believe you are incorrect, @Jaxk.

“Anchor baby” doesn’t sound offensive to me. Very possible that any term, no matter how worded, would still offend.

Of course all these anchor babies become eligible to vote when they are 18. My ex brother in law was born in Alaska to two Norwegian parents. He decided he very much wanted the US passport and is now a dual citizen but never lived there past his 3rd birthday. Guess what he does every 4 years? :)

@kritiper That was my view as well.

I was looking for something like a BIUSOUP: Born In United States Of Undocumented Parents, but a better acronym.

@jca & @Pied_Pfeffer – Immigration is not easy for anyone but if you have a close family member that is a citizen, you have the easiest route. Here is an article that talks about this.

Read sections 3.2 and 3.3. Family has priority.