Trump Scuttles Obama Policy, Deals Massive Blow to Anchor-Baby Illegals
Then-candidate Donald Trump vowed to get tough on illegal immigration during his election campaign and he’s already taken action to fulfill that promise.
Most recently, a significant policy change from the previous administration will end exemptions of detainment and deportation for pregnant illegal immigrants, according to The Hill.
The new policy will allow for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to take pregnant illegal immigrants into custody and begin the process of deportation, provided the pregnant women receive all necessary medical care and thorough records are kept of the women who are detained.
The policy was set forward in an internal directive issued back in December 2017 by Thomas Homan, acting director of ICE, which overrode a previous policy put in place by Homan. The former policy stated that “absent extraordinary circumstances or the requirement of mandatory detention, pregnant women will generally not be detained by ICE.”
The new directive — which can be read here — has only just now gone into effect due to the need for the agency to ensure that all proper training and necessary infrastructure was in place prior to detaining pregnant illegal immigrants.
While this directive is certainly more in line with Trump’s broader policy in regard to the detainment and deportation of illegal immigrants, ICE will still make a “case-by-case custody determination taking any special factors into account” when dealing with pregnant illegal immigrants, and “absent extraordinary circumstances, ICE will not detain a pregnant alien during the third trimester of pregnancy.”
The exemption for pregnant illegals in their third trimester is likely due to the elevated risk of pregnancy complications or miscarriage as well as the fact that women at a late-term in their pregnancy are generally not cleared for flights and detainment facilities may not be capable of providing adequate care for the late-term pregnancy or a newborn.
It is worth noting that Homan, a hold-over from the prior Obama administration, has made it abundantly clear that he is 100 percent in support of Trump’s tougher policies and crackdown on illegal immigration.
According to The National Law Review, part of that tough policy includes a recent crackdown on what is known as “birth tourism,” a practice in which both legal and illegal immigrants travel to the United States to give birth to children who will then receive U.S. citizenship simply because they were born on U.S. soil.
Those children are referred to as “anchor babies” — meaning their citizenship provides an “anchor” for the immigrant family in the U.S. Once the child reaches the age of 21, they can then sponsor their parents and other family members for Green Cards, who in turn can then do the same for other family members in what has become known as “chain migration.”
The recent crackdown on the lucrative birth tourism industry has involved officials in various departments working together to shut down so-called “birth hotels,” which host pregnant immigrants, using whatever means available including raids, contractual breaches, immigration fraud charges, tax fraud charges and even zoning violations.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform reported in 2017 that nearly half of all legal immigrants allowed into the U.S. annually came by virtue of chain migration.
President Trump and some members of Congress have been seeking to legislatively do away with or significantly limit chain migration, such as with the RAISE Act which would value merit and skills-based immigration over family connections.
There is no doubt that Trump and ICE will receive heavy criticism from the left in regard to the new policy which allows for the detainment and deportation of pregnant illegal immigration. It’s already been deemed “inhumane,” “cruel and unnecessary,” “reprehensible” and “disturbing” by the chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Democrat New Mexico Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, according to The Hill.
However, if Trump and ICE really want to put a stop to the prevalence of birth tourism, anchor babies and chain migration, being allowed to detain and deport pregnant illegal immigrants is absolutely necessary.
Provided adequate safeguards are put in place and the detained pregnant women are handled in a careful and respectful manner which minimizes the risks to themselves or their unborn children, there is little else that can be said against this policy.
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