Chinese Anchor Babies – A New Phenomenon

“Stories of upper-class Chinese women flying to the United States in style and staying at private clinics to have their babies to take advantage of citizenship laws soon began to appear in the news cycle.” Anchor babies. It’s a term that was not very common up until the very heated debates of the last few years on American immigration reform. And as the article at the link correctly sums up, in the minds of most Americans the term anchor baby is most commonly associated with illegal, impoverished Latino immigrants and their often dire need for social services from the state. But apparently, anchor babies have become a way for affluent parents from mainland China to establish American citizenship for their new children, often as a way to circumvent China’s “One Child” policy or give their kids access to better education and lifestyle opportunities. And these parents are doing everything by the book, applying for the proper visas and paying the required fees, in order to secure legal U.S. citizenship for these kids. Problem is, due to China’s current policy on dual-citzenship (it isn’t allowed), these fully Chinese anchor babies may have serious problems leading lives split between their parents’ homeland and their own. (NBC News Behind the Wall – Affluent Chinese Anchor Babies)