My anchor babies

Yesterday my wife, my brother and I decided to go to the city (Manhattan -we live in the New Jersey suburbs-) with our two daughters. As we were joyfully strolling down Broadway minding our own business and talking among us (in Spanish, of course, which I'm sure you'll understand is perfectly normal behavior for native speakers of any language when they speak among each other regardless of what country they happen to be in -Americans living in Mexico or France speak English among themselves as they are perfectly entitled to do-), when out of the blue a woman turned to us as we walked pass her and sarcastically referred to my daughters (6 months old and 6 years old) as "anchor babies".

Ny wife and I are Mexican citizens (from Morelia). We came to the New York metro region under a work visa, we've lived here for 10 years and are now US permanent residents. I work in investment banking for a bulge bracket US firm. Needless to say (and yet, here I am feeling compelled to state it) we are law abiding citizens that have paid literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes in the past ten years. Needless to say as well, my current and future immigration status have nothing to do with the fact that my daughter's were born here and (will) have dual citizenship.

I am normally pretty hard skinned, but I have to confess that this made me quite angry. I blurted out a profanity (which of course got me in trouble with my wife for using such language in front of the kids) and told my wife and brother what the woman had just said -apparently I was the only one who actually heard her and in fact, I had to explain what the term "anchor baby" meant as neither my brother nor my wife had heard it-. They were much cooler about it than I was. My 25 year old brother laughed it off: "does she realize where she is?" (New York City, where 40% of the population is foreign born), "I guess she must go around saying this to every other person she meets on the street... I know she'd have to call this to the kids of most of my colleagues on the trading floor".

Am I being overly sensitive about this? I don't think so. Anchor baby is obviously a loaded term. In my culture it's considered impolite to even refer to someone as "he" or "she" instead of by his/her name if that person is present (mothers will correct this with a stern: "el/ella tiene su nombre" ("he/she has a name"). So, I find it beyond rude to refer to a stranger's kid by a label, even if it were a less emotionally loaded one (think about it: how would you feel if a stranger refer to your kids as "child tax credit babies" or something like that?) Calling someone's kids "anchor babies" seems almost unfathomable. (Think of the inherent chauvinism/xenophobia in assuming that because we are speaking a foreign language and look non-American we: a) are here illegally, b) had our babies in the US in order to one day get American citizenship ourselves and live-off the generosity of American tax payers).

I'm not even dealing with politics here, but with mere politeness. What drives an apparently otherwise normal person (I wish I could report that our harraser was an obviously fringe character or displayed obvious signs of ignorance and unsophistication, in fact, she seemed like an average New Yorker) to harrass a person she doesn't know like this? I agree that American style political correctness can at times be almost grotesquely funny, but I much prefer it to insensitive name calling and labelling. Labelling is oftentimes the first step in dehumanizing the "other", which is a dangerous slippery slope (Milgram, the psychologist, in a lesser known variation of his famous -or infamous- experiment, showed that people were much more likely to voluntarily harm a stranger that had done no harm to them if they "accidentally" overheard the researcher using a derisive label in referring to the stranger). I obviously don't want to take this argument too far. I think I am already giving way too much importance to the hateful words of a random stranger as it stands. However, I do think both sides of the immigration debate need to tone down the rethoric. There are clearly valid arguments on both sides, but labelling and name calling are utterly unhelpful and will only lead to further polarization.

As an aside, I think the concept of anchor babies is largely a myth. First of all, having an American baby will not necessarily save an illegal alien from deportation, as it has been clearly established by well publicized cases. Second, an anchor baby cannot really apply for a green card for his/her parents until after he/she is 18. After that, there's usually a long wait of several years before parents can get permanent residence. Finally, having an "anchor baby" does not give the parent rights to receive social security payments, etc. I really don't think that illegal aliens that are having babies in the US are doing so in order to get a green card 30 years down the road. There are other myths that are used by both sides in this debate (another one that comes to mind is that illegal immigrants are draining social security funds, when in fact, it's well documented that the social security administration records a significant amount of social security contributions that were made under a false SSN and therefore cannot be claimed by the people who made such contributions, so illegal immigrants are in fact subsidizing social security). Well, I said I did not want to get into politics. Besides, it's unfair because I'm only giving one side of the argument here. As I've said, there are valid arguments to both sides. I'm all for fair and objective debate of these arguments, but ad hominem attacks and labelling are clearly not constructive.

I realize that in the big scheme of things, these woman's comment is not a big deal. As I said, I'm usually pretty hard skinned, but perhaps the fact that this involved my kids (however tangentially) made me react strongly to this person's insensitivity and prejudice. I too have wondered whether there were other factors that drove this person to act the way she did. I don't tend to divide the world into demons and angels, and know full well that the capacity for evil resides within each of us (I recently read the Lucifer Effect, which deals with this subject). If anything, I blame the rethorical excesses involved in the current immigration debate. I happen to notice the excesses incurred by one of the sides in the debate, simply because I'm much more attuned to the arguments of the other side, but I'm sure both sides engage in this to some degree.

Finally, let me clarify that my rant is in no way intended as an indictment of an entire country. In all fairness I have to say that this is the first time in my 10 years in this country that I've directly experienced something close to xenophobia. I consider myself a New Yorker (after 10 years here you'd expect that) and have many good friends in this city and this country. I also realize that prejudice is, alas, prevalent among different cultures. I've traveled extensively for work and pleasure and have lived and worked in three countries and two continents. I have very good friends in each of those countries. I have encountered many examples of garden-variety rudeness, but fortunately have not personally often seen the ugly face of overt prejudice.

Brief overview on dual citizenship
In general, countries define citizenship based on one’s descent, place of birth, marriage, and/or naturalization. That is, you might be a citizen of a given country for one or more of the following reasons:

You were born on territory belonging to, or claimed by, that country (often called ius soli, or sometimes jus soli — Latin for “right of the soil”).

One or both of your parents were citizens of that country (often called ius sanguinis or jus sanguinis — Latin for “right of the blood”).

You married a citizen of that country (though please note that the practice of granting immediate, automatic citizenship to a foreign spouse is far less prevalent today than it was decades ago).

You (or one or both of your parents) obtained that country’s citizenship by going through a legal process of naturalization.
The exact details will, not surprisingly, depend on the laws of the country in question. For example, the US limits its application of ius sanguinis by requiring American parents to have lived for a certain period of time in the US before foreign-born children can be entitled to US citizenship by birth. Many countries (Switzerland is one example) do not confer citizenship via ius soli at all, and those which do generally make exceptions for children of foreign diplomats. Automatic citizenship via marriage is rare nowadays; more commonly, marriage may allow one spouse a “fast track” to immigration to the other spouse’s country, but a period of non-citizen permanent residence would still be required before the immigrant spouse could obtain a new citizenship via naturalization.

Since there can be several ways to acquire a given country’s citizenship, it is possible for someone to be considered a citizen under the laws of two (or more) countries at the same time. This is what is meant by dual (or multiple) citizenship.

For example, my son has been a dual citizen of both the US and Canada from the day he was born. He is a citizen of the US (via ius sanguinis), because his parents are both US citizens who fulfilled the US’s legal requirement of residency in the US prior to his birth. And he is also a citizen of Canada (via ius soli), because he was born in Canada and neither my wife nor myself were in Canada as foreign diplomats.

I, too, am a dual citizen of both the US and Canada — a citizen of the US because I was born in the US, and a citizen of Canada because I went through the Canadian naturalization process (an action which did not cause me to lose my US citizenship).

Countries usually frame their citizenship laws with little or no regard for the citizenship laws of other countries. In my son’s case, for instance, the US does not care that Canada thinks he is a Canadian citizen, and Canada does not care that the US thinks he is a US citizen.

In some (but, please note, not all) cases, a country may seek to restrict dual citizenship by requiring one of its citizens born with some other citizenship to renounce (give up) the other citizenship upon reaching adulthood. Similarly, newly naturalized citizens in some (but not all) countries are required to renounce their previous citizenship(s); the US has such a requirement, for example, but Canada does not. And in some (but, again, not all) cases, a country will automatically revoke the citizenship of one of its citizens who acquires another country’s citizenship by naturalization, even if no explicit renunciation was involved.

Where one country requires a citizen to renounce the citizenship of another country, this renunciation may or may not be acknowledged or accepted by the other country. This can sometimes lead to sticky legal situations. Also, countries which require such renunciations differ in how seriously they treat this requirement. In some cases (such as Singapore), an applicant for naturalization may be required by his new country to go to an embassy or consulate of his old country and renounce his old citizenship in a manner prescribed by his old country’s laws. Other countries (such as the US in recent years) may treat their own naturalization oaths’ renunciatory language as essentially meaningless and take no steps to enforce it at all.

As a general rule, dual citizens are not entitled to any sort of special treatment by their two countries of citizenship. Each country will usually consider the person as if he were a citizen of that country alone. Some people describe this sort of situation by saying that a given country “does not recognize dual citizenship” — but this usage can be confusing, because it might mean either that a country passively ignores other countries’ claims on its citizens, or that it actively prohibits its citizens from also being citizens of other countries.

Citizenship frequently carries with it legal obligations relating to taxes, military service, and/or travel restrictions. Again, since countries usually insist on dealing with their citizens without regard to any other citizenships they might hold, and tend to frame their laws regarding citizenship obligations without regard for the laws of other countries, a dual citizen could possibly find that a country which considers him a citizen, but in which he does not live, expects him to pay taxes (possibly in addition to taxes he is already paying in his country of residence); considers him liable to be drafted into its army (even if he has already served or is currently serving in the other country’s army); and may forbid him to travel to certain countries, including possibly his other country of citizenship.

In practice, such situations are often smoothed over via tax treaties and the like, but conflicts could (and sometimes do) occur. Also, be aware that most countries (the US is the main exception) base liability for income tax on residence (where one lives) and/or source of income, not solely on citizenship; thus, dual citizenship usually does not automatically translate into double taxation.

Citizenship claims by a country over a given individual could happen even if the person in question never sought recognition as a citizen of that country — or even if the person was totally unaware that he/she was a citizen of that country according to its laws. Accordingly, anyone who is planning to travel to an ancestral homeland — even for a brief vacation trip — would be strongly advised to check that country’s citizenship laws carefully beforehand. Otherwise, the trip could run into unpleasant snags if you discover, say, that Country X considers you to be one of its citizens because your father (or even your grandfather!) came from Country X — and that, as a result, you need a passport issued by Country X in order to leave — and in any event you can’t leave until you have put in a year’s worth of military service in Country X’s army — and when consular officials of the only country where you thought you were a citizen try to intervene in your behalf, they are told to get lost because your case is strictly an internal matter between Country X and one of its own citizens (i.e., you)!

On the other hand, dual citizenship can have distinct advantages. In particular, a person with dual citizenship has greater flexibility in his or her choice of where to live and work. Thus, it behooves anyone with dual or multiple citizenship — or with the possibility of claiming such a status — to investigate the pros and cons of the specific situation very carefully.

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