America. The land of the free, the home of the brave. Public education, world class health care- America has so much to offer its citizens. All of these qualities that make people happy to be an American citizen lure foreigners to our sparkling shores in hopes of fulfilling their own American dream. In recent years, the boat that has carried immigrants to our shining seas is children.

Birth tourism has become an industry in both the U.S. and Canada. Maternity hotels, where foreign women in the late stages of pregnancy can come to the United States just long enough to give birth and obtain U.S. passports and birth certificates for their child, have popped up in suburbs around the country.  After these so-called anchor babies are born, questions are raised about whether their parents should be allowed to stay in the US with their child because their child is a legal American citizen.

These parents have the best of intentions. They want to create the best circumstances for their child. They want to give their child a better education, a safer place to live and hope for a better future, but allowing these parents to stay in the United States only exacerbates the problem.

If our government continues to allow immigrants to stay in the country and reap the benefits of citizenship for their children, it will only encourage other immigrants to come to the U.S., and if our government allows parents of U.S. citizens to gain citizenship status, the increase in immigration to the United States will be enormous.  

Another possible side effect of changing the law would be that foreign women would get pregnant and have their babies in the U.S. solely to become U.S. citizens.

According to Andy J. Semotiuk, a U.S. and Canadian immigration lawyer, most prospective mothers of the maternity hotels are sold on the notion that education in the United States is ‘free.’

If the concept of a free education is enough to bring a substantial amount of women to our country, take a moment to imagine how the idea of automatic citizenship would lure immigrants to the United States.

Proponents of changing the law will say that leaving children, legal U.S. citizens nonetheless, to grow up without the benefits of their American citizenship is unfair, but these children can’t stay in the U.S. without their parents, so their solution is to give the parents legal citizenship. This avoids overcrowding foster care systems or sending the children back to their native countries.

However, this solution only furthers the problem. Giving the parents citizenship will only encourage more immigrants to come to this country, and create more children that this country can’t provide for.

I don’t agree with the radical GOP politicians who use the term ‘anchor babies’ as a derogatory term and who believe that all undocumented immigrants should be deported immediately.

According to thinkprocess.org, debates on immigration laws have “quickly evolved to endorsements of changing the Constitution to strip millions of immigrants of their citizenship, and targeting the children of foreign-born parents.”

These rash politicians have unrealistic and cruel ideas, but those people who want to open the U.S. to the undocumented parents of U.S. born children are just as unrealistic.

I believe there is a middle ground we need to reach as a country, somewhere between the Donald Trumps and the compassionate souls, that allow the United States of America to continue to be the land of the free without becoming the land of free education and free citizenship.