The Republican presidential candidates, from Trump to Bush, have taken on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration. The most recent: Bush’s “anchor babies” comment outraged Asian American communities. Now, the way Bush spoke about illegal immigration may be off-putting to some (but then again, anything anyone says can be off-putting to some).
Isn’t it time we talk about illegal immigration in the Asian community?
Birth tourism is a booming business for the wealthy Asians for all the wrong reasons. Now, let’s get the numbers straight: Traveling to the U.S. and delivering a baby costs between $20,000 and $80,000. That’s not something the average working class individual in Asia can readily afford. Immigrants come to America for a variety of reasons. For example, the U.S. is home to some of the best universities in the world. Being a U.S. citizen gives better access to educational resources when the child gets older. Meanwhile, the family can avoid U.S. taxes and still put their money in overseas accounts. Some come to avoid military draft at home. Having a U.S. citizenship also means a refuge when the going gets tough in their own countries (look where children of wealthy Chinese politicians end up when their daddy falls).
You might ask, so what? So what if these people are gaming the system? Why do we care? Well, the obvious reason might be that the U.S. is draining its own resources letting in people who dodge the responsibility but enjoy the privilege of being American. But, a more sinister and nuanced reason is that in doing so, the U.S. is actively contributing to the political oppression in these Asian countries, especially the authoritarian ones.
A quite recent phenomenon in China is the “naked” politicians, wealthy and powerful government officials who have most of their family and wealth abroad. Naturally, they don’t speak or act out of the interest of their people. They are mostly after extracting as much money as they can so their family can live large somewhere else. This creates a lot of corruption and social problems. The rise of birth tourism and U.S. negligence has been a cause to this problem.
It is time that we redefine what citizenship is. Yes, the 14th Amendment says “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”. But, have we never had to clarify or redefine what citizenship is? Just look to the people born in U.S. territories like Guam or Puerto Rico. They are U.S. citizens but subject to a different voting representation. If we’ve done it before, what is forcing us to stick to an old interpretation of the Constitution and not adapt to the times?
