Talk:Anchor baby

"Illegal immigrant" changed to "undocumented immigrant"
"The term "illegal immigrant" is not valid as a legal concept, because the US law defines an "immigrant" as a person who was lawfully admitted for permanent residence. [7]" from Illegal immigration

A person is not "illegal". I would like to recommend the change to "undocumented" everywhere it is used in this article. A less offensive term would be "citizenship by birthright baby" or shortened, to "birthright baby". It is true that leaving a child relative in the US (who is a citizen) does allow the parents and siblings to obtain a tourist visa because "visiting relatives" is a valid reason for obtaining a tourist visa. It is right on the application! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.34.74.224 (talk) 03:04, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

JoyceD (talk) 19:04, 18 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Undocumented immigrant is a political term and not a legal term. The legal term is an illegal alien, but since New York Times uses it and also US Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor used the term 'illegal immigrant' in a decision in 2010, I fail to see how it is not the correct term to use. Meishern (talk) 06:28, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * We need to use the WP:COMMONNAME based on WP:RS, not the legal term or the political term. So what do news agencies, academics, lawyers, etc. use?  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please  03:51, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * New York Times: "The Times Shifts on ‘Illegal Immigrant,’ but Doesn’t Ban the Use" By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY APRIL 23, 2013
 * Washington Post: "Lawmaker claims illegal immigrants released by Obama are committing a murder a day" By Glenn Kessler March 5, 2015


 * The NYT and WP still use the term. I think the NYTs approach is the best: the NYT "will continue to allow the phrase to be used for “someone who enters, lives in or works in the United States without proper legal authorization.” But it encourages reporters and editors to “consider alternatives when appropriate to explain the specific circumstances of the person in question, or to focus on actions.” Undocumented seems to indicate that they do not have documents which is untrue as they do, just not the right ones; and those who overstayed their visas are fully documented but their their visas have expired. The act of being here is illegal either if you overstay your visa (which is not a crime) or enter against the law (which is a crime). As long as there is the nuance of the person's circumstances, I do not see why we should change the term. People who are reading the article know what it means. My opinion would be that "Persons unlawfully present in the United States" would be the best term but I guess I would be the first to use that.Patapsco913 (talk) 14:00, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... Shortening that brings the term "Unlawful immigrant" to mind. Another alternative might be "Unauthorized immigrant". I see that those terms have been used:
 * Unauthorized
 * Pew Research Center has used it.
 * notes, "Per the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 'Unauthorized immigrant' is defined as a foreign-born non-citizen who is not a legal resident." See also.
 * the Daily Kos has used it.
 * Unlawful
 * says, "Black’s law dictionary supports the conclusion that 'Unlawful Immigrant' is more appropriate [than 'Illegal immigrant']."
 * Heritage Foundation has used it.
 * Cato Institute has used it.
 * (blacklisted) MoveOn.org has urged its use.


 * I'm just shooting off the top of my head here, and haven't looked deeper than the above, but it might make sense to standardize internally WP-wide on one term, to search WP-wide for articles using the "illegal" and/or the "undocumented" terminology, to edit each of those articles to use the WP-standardized term, and to add a note to each article explaining the use of that WP-standardized terminology.


 * Such action would need wide consensus, however, and might be impractical. There's just too much WP:JDLI in play. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)


 * What is truly OFFENSIVE is making semantic excuses for people who WILLFULLY break the law. "Unauthorized" is still ILLEGAL. Driving your car 200MPH is ILLEGAL not "unauthorized speeding".  People who immigrate to the USA and other nations ILLEGALLY are  ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. The article should just call these people CRIMINALS because that is what they are.  If I sneak into a movie theater without paying I would be a CRIMINAL; depriving the rightful owner his due for my trespass.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.152.146.222 (talk) 01:32, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Make more neutral
It says pejorative. I haven't heard a "politically correct" (soft words) term for anchor baby, so until that happens I feel it should be removed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.91.99.69 (talk) 23:12, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * X mark.svg Not done There are multiple reliable sources which state this as a pejorative, one specifically bringing up your concern. As it stands right now, the opening sentence does not give undue weight -- w L &lt;speak&middot;check&gt; 07:12, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Article has a grossly Pro-immigrant & US-centric bias
Anchor Baby is not a term solely used to describe the behaviour of Latinamerican families in the US. It is also a term to describe Chinese and African Birth Tourism in Canada, Australia, France, etc. The article also immediately opens up with a WP:UNDUEWEIGHT machine-gun fire of WP:TOOMANYCITATIONS of pro-immigrant Editorials in liberal or pro-immigration leaning Newspapers followed by dubious language trying to cast doubt over whether the phenomenon actually exists (it does), creating a breach of WP:NPOV by painting the word as some kind of racist derogatory word in line with phrases like "currymuncher", "beaner", etc. which is false and a blatant sign that the writer likely had an agenda to push.

Fadendra1 (talk) 05:36, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. The controversy section is one sided, citing trivial "non-PC" cases of the presumed offences. Zezen (talk) 11:02, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Residency Requirement
The first sentence of the 14th Amendment explicitly requires legal residency, this has  been pointed out by  many, and was reaffirmed in  the 1898 Supreme  Court decision. Wikipedia should  make  this  clear. Illegal immigrants do not have legal residency and so are not covered by the 14th Amendment.47.201.182.47 (talk) 13:50, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not a lawyer or particularly focused on this, but the above piqued my interest enough for me to dig up "the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment expressly equates citizenship only with simple residence" in Zobe v Williams and "The Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause expressly equates citizenship with residence, Zobel, 457 U. S., at 69" in Saenz v. Roe . Since I went to the trouble of digging that up, I thought I would link those cites here for ease of reference. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:33, 20 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Additionally, Plyler v. Doe (1982), dealing with the right to public education of children who were brought illegally into the US — the Supreme Court said in this case that 14th Amendment "jurisdiction" was essentially equivalent to physical presence and was not conditioned on having entered the US legally. As for Wong Kim Ark, our current understanding of "illegal immigration" was mostly unknown in 1898, and most (though admittedly not all) legal scholars who have written/spoken on this case have opined that it applies both to legal and to illegal immigrants; see the section "Wong Kim Ark and children of illegal aliens" in the Wong Kim Ark article.  —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Babies of foreign aliens are not US Citizens, Senator Reverdy Johnson said it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_M._Howard#Speech_on_the_proposed_14th_Amendment Note Wong was OK because his father had legal residency. Note also the Plyler vs Doe ruling was only in so much as schooling illegal children is concerned.  Anchor Babies of aliens are therefore not citizens. 47.201.182.47 (talk) 04:03, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

"Drop and leave" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Drop and leave. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 14 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Bacon 15:06, 14 August 2020 (UTC)