Where is the outrage over Jeb’s politically correct racism against Asians while excusing vastly more costly Mexican exploitation of the same law?
Jeb Bush was attacked by the Democrats’ PC Police for his use of the forbidden term “Anchor Baby,” so he had to explain the lapse in judgment. He decided to change the subject — by insulting Asian women who come to the US to give birth and then go home. Bush bravely jumped from the frying pan into the fire by saying he was thinking not about illegal Hispanics having babies to gain legal status but the thousands of Asians who engage in “birth tourism.”
Actually, it is tens of thousands. Chinese government statistics claim the number grew from 4,200 in 2008 to 10,000 in 2012, and the Center for Immigration Studies put the 2014 number at 36,000 from all nations, with China, Korea, Egypt and Russia being the leaders.
So, it appears that in 2015 about 40,000 babies will be granted US Citizenship and a passport as a result of “birth tourism,” a majority of the mothers being from Asia.
- To “Jeb!” those approximately 20,000 babies who return to Asia with their mother and a US passport are a problem to be solved, yet the 340,000 babies earning US Citizenship by being born to an illegal alien mother– babies who remain in the US as part of an illegal alien household costing the US taxpayers an average of $700,000 annually — those anchor babies are not a problem. Move along, nothing to see here.
- Curiously, Jeb Bush did not stop to explain why the Mexican or Honduran mother crossing the Rio Grande to have her baby in an American hospital is engaged in an “act of love,” but the Chinese or Korean mother who wants her baby to be an American citizen should be treated like a criminal.
- Why is the Hispanic mother a hero to be welcomed and the Asian mother a criminal to be prosecuted? Why do we need new barriers against Asians but not against Central Americans?
Americans living close to the southwest border know a lot about birth tourism. Emergency Room facilities in Cochise County, Arizona and several California communities were closed down because of the cost of providing services to women crossing the border to give birth — and then returning two days later to Mexico. On one of my trips to the California border near Tijuana, I witnessed ambulances waiting 100 yards from the border for their expectant passengers.
What can explain Bush’s politically correct racism in criticizing Asian birth tourism and excusing the Mexican variety?
Maybe birth tourism was not a big deal in Jeb Bush’s Florida while he was governor, but he has had plenty of time to study the issue since leaving office eight years ago. Birth tourism has been the subject of extensive news coverage in the New York Times, USA Today, LA Times, Huffington Post, NewsMAX, and even the Wall Street Journal. The FBI and local police raided over two dozen birth tourism facilities in Southern California in March.
- Asian mothers who exploit birthright citizenship laws come from wealthy families who pay up to $60,000 to have a child on US soil and return home months later.
- Unlike illegal aliens, Asian mothers pay their own hospital bills, and they don’t transport 40 pounds of marijuana or meth across the border to pay a coyote.
Why does Bush think Asian birth tourism is a national scandal, while the 340,000 illegal alien anchor babies annually are a national treasure?
- At least 5,000,000 anchor babies have been born to illegal alien parents since Bush took office in Florida sixteen years ago, at least 75% of them to mothers from Mexico and Central America.
If the numbers were reversed, and we had 500,000 illegal aliens annually coming from Asia and only 20,000 from Mexico and Central America, would Jeb Bush be using his Mexican-born wife as an excuse for turning a blind eye to the costs and perils created by illegal immigration?
- Asians are only 3% of the US population, not 20%, and unlike the illegal alien population, Asian birth tourism is not adding over $100 BILLION annually to taxpayers’ burden for government expenditures.
The only possible reason for attacking Asians is to distract public attention from the true problem, the massive cost of illegal alien abuse of birthright citizenship.
Bush’s cynicism and hypocrisy is only slightly less astounding than the media’s ugly bias in letting him get away with it. On the other hand, it’s not at all surprising: being the establishment’s candidate means immunity from the standards applied to others.
Tom Tancredo is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Foundation and founder and co-chairman of Team America PAC.
Tom represented Colorado’s sixth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009, and he is a former presidential candidate.
He is the author of In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America’s Border and Security.
