Stunning new data from the Pew Research Center shows that nearly 10 percent of the babies born in the United States under former President Joe Biden’s administration in 2023 were so-called “anchor babies” — Their mothers were either in the country illegally or on temporary legal status.
The 10 percent figure is the the highest rate since the Obama administration.
Pew found that 320,000 of the 3.6 million babies born in the United States in 2023 were born to those mothers.
Of those, roughly 260,000 would not have qualified for birthright citizenship under President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting the practice, had it already been in effect.
That breaks down to about 245,000 babies born to illegal immigrant mothers whose fathers were also not U.S. citizens or lawful residents, and roughly 15,000 born to mothers with temporary legal status in the same situation.
Analysts say the numbers carry serious policy implications.
“Under the current erroneous birthright citizenship interpretation, these children automatically become citizens and unlock food stamps, welfare, specialized schooling for English education, and eventually college aid,” Brandy Perez Carbaugh of the Heritage Foundation told The New York Post.
“High volumes of illegal and temporary aliens are having children in the US because they are exploiting the decades-old erroneous interpretation that such children are US citizens.”
Since 2006, Pew estimates there have been roughly 5.1 million births to illegal immigrant mothers in the U.S.
As of 2023, an estimated 4.6 million of those children are still living in the country with at least one illegal immigrant parent.
The Supreme Court is currently weighing the legality of Trump’s executive order in Trump v. Barbara, with a ruling expected in late June or early July. The order would deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil if both parents lack legal status or permanent residency.
Birthright citizenship stems from the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War to guarantee citizenship rights to freed slaves. The Department of Justice has argued before the high court that the amendment was never intended to apply to children of those with no lawful claim to be in the country, pointing to the amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause as the legal basis for the restriction.