Donald Trump’s campaign manager: 400,000 ‘anchor babies’ born in U.S. every year | PolitiFact

The numbers in America of those born to undocumented immigrants and the much smaller amount due to ‘birth tourism’ (340,000 compared to 8,600, or 8 and 0.2 percent of total births respectively – Canadian figures from CIC analysis show 500 out of 360,000 total live births or 0.14 percent) :

Those figures may have been accurate several years ago, but they are outdated when compared to current estimates, said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer with the Pew Research Center. Passel is the author of a widely cited 2010 Pew Hispanic Center report that pins the number of children born to undocumented immigrants at 340,000 in 2008 (about 8 percent of all births that year).

“Figures as high as 400,000 per year are plausible for the mid 2000s, but our current estimates are around 300,000 per year,” he told us. “The numbers were higher in the mid 2000s than now — in part because there were more unauthorized immigrants then and overall birth rates, for natives and immigrants alike, were higher before the recession.”

So Lewandowski’s number is slightly exaggerated.

His characterization of these births as “anchor babies” is also problematic, however, as the metaphor implies intent that the numbers don’t back up. Based on past reporting, it’s not clear whether every birth to an undocumented mother was for the purpose of tethering the family to American soil.

“There are a million hardworking Hispanic people in San Diego who came here to work and then happened to have a baby,” midwife Lauren Weber said in the 2010 fact-check. “Then, there are people who come over in order to have a baby.”

Weber also described a practice known as “birth tourism,” in which middle- and upper-class visitors on tourist visas travel to the United States specifically to have a baby. The numbers for these types of births are much lower, at around 8,600, or 0.2 percent of all births, in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As for undocummented immigrants, experts don’t think they have the same motivations.

“I believe that most migrants come for economic reasons and opportunity,” said Theresa Brown, the director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Institute. “The idea that their child may be able to sponsor them for a green card in 21 years is probably too long term to be a primary driver of immigration.”

Source: Donald Trump’s campaign manager: 400,000 ‘anchor babies’ born in U.S. every year | PolitiFact