U.S. presidential election and `anchor babies`

Chinese movie “Finding Mr. Right” released in 2013 is a romantic comedy starred by Chinese actress Tang Wei, who has married Korean film director Kim Tae-yong. A story of the pregnant woman who came to the U.S. to give birth, the movie got an all-time box office record as a romance movie in China. The heroine had a baby with a wealthy married man, and took maternity trip to Seattle where she finds a true lover.

Maternity trip by wealthy people is not new in Korea, but the U.S. is currently agonizing over Chinese pregnant women coming to give birth there. In March this year, a joint investigative team of the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service made surprise attack on high-end apartments in LA and elsewhere to crack down on China’s maternity trip brokers. Maternity trip costs are from 40,000 U.S. dollars up to 80,000 dollars, but still popular among Chinese pregnant women. The U.S. grants birthright citizenship to the so-called “anchor babies.” It is a derogatory reference as the child acts as an anchor that pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives into permanent U.S. residency.

“Anchor babies” are a hot topic among U.S. presidential candidates. Republican candidate and real estate billionaire Donald Trump claims for the abolition of birthright citizenship, while another Republican candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush also criticized maternity trips by Asian women. While Trump is a loose cannon, Bush distorted maternity trips as prevalent among Asian people, receiving setbacks. Illegal Latin American people account for an overwhelming majority of total maternity trips to the U.S.

It is not the only problem of the U.S. where there are complaints that children born through maternity trip threatens the nation’s welfare and jobs. Hong Kong suffered from Chinese pregnant women coming for a chance to have their child get preferential entrance to Chinese universities. The nationality issue that is prompting maternity trips is sensitive as it is connected to xenophobia. Maternity trips are the parents’ greed to have their children get bigger benefits than others. They are the main culprit that causes a rupture in community spirit.