‘Anchor Baby’ Schemes Are Thriving And The System Making It Possible Is Still Untouched

The following is an edited transcript excerpt from The Michael Knowles Show.

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A huge proportion of babies born in the United States are now born to foreign nationals who are cheating the immigration system. 

Can we acknowledge this whole “anchor baby” thing is a problem? I should hope so but I’m not totally sure that we can.

The whole concept of birthright citizenship comes from the British. The idea stems from a distinction between jus soli — the right-of-the-soil — and jus sanguinis — the right-of-blood. The notion that you get your citizenship from the blood of your parents versus receiving citizenship because you were born on certain soil.

Well, we get the idea from English common law. And guess what? The English — the Brits — have not had jus soli, right-of-the-soil birthright citizenship, since 1983. So even they recognized there’s a problem.

Can we too recognize that there’s a problem here?

Western Lensman gives some very good background on this topic on X, posting a clip about pregnant mothers from Turkey giving birth in the United States. Here’s the clip:

2020. Turkish anchor baby ring found operating in Long Island, NY — mothers got taxpayer funded healthcare.

This is insane:

“Prosecutors say more than 100 pregnant women from Turkey came here to give birth, so their children were instantly granted U.S. citizenship.”… https://t.co/mjxyihjeO2 pic.twitter.com/QcWl50rEXd

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) April 2, 2026

Source: WesternLensman/X.com

There are “anchor baby” operations — what amount to birth tourism schemes — that have been operating in this country for years. Prosecutors described a case on Long Island where more than 100 pregnant women from Turkey came to the U.S. to give birth so their children would automatically receive U.S. citizenship.

The defendants fraudulently facilitated the births in the United States of approximately 119 Turkish children. And those children now hold birthright U.S. citizenship.

Officials alleged the scheme was openly advertised abroad — essentially marketing the idea: if you want your child to be born in the United States and become an American citizen, this is how you do it.

This is a business. This is an industry.

You see versions of this in other countries too — there were similar cases involving Chinese birth tourism operations in the past.

So, again I ask, can we acknowledge that this is a problem?

Yes.

Where does the problem derive from? It derives from what is now an outmoded conception from English common law — so much so that the English themselves moved away from it — and from interpretations of the 14th Amendment that have been expanded far beyond what some argue was originally intended.

So what’s the solution?

The solution, very obviously, would be to place limits on how birthright citizenship is applied. You don’t necessarily have to eliminate it entirely — you could define it more narrowly. Some argue that even within the text of the 14th Amendment there are grounds for interpretation about who qualifies, since the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” has historically been debated.

That’s the argument.

And the broader point is this: if a country cannot define who is and is not a citizen, then it raises serious questions about sovereignty and governance.

That’s why this debate keeps coming up.