NY Times fine with 'maternity tourism,' but 'anchor babies' is racist
By Eddie Scarry • 8/25/15 4:28 PM
The New York Times is pushing back against Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Jeb Bush for employing the phrase "anchor babies" when referring to illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. and giving birth to children who are then automatically granted citizenship.
Both Bush and Trump have used the term in public while campaigning and discussing their positions on immigration policy. When challenged by reporters who said the term is "offensive," Trump said he would continue to use it and Bush said he was specifically referring to Asian immigrants.
"[Jeb Bush] should never let himself say the words 'anchor babies' ever again," said a Times editorial published Tuesday. "He got in trouble for using that derogatory reference to the children of unauthorized immigrants in passing, in an interview, then dug himself a hole by defending his use of it."
The Times itself has reported on underground businesses that bring pregnant Chinese women to the U.S. on visas so the women can give birth to their children on American soil, granting them citizenship. Once the child reaches 21, he or she can then help his or her parents enter the U.S. legally.
The Times used the term "maternity tourism" to describe this practice, and questioned the racial motives of Trump and Bush.
"It was such an unnecessary battle to wade into — maternity tourism is not what Mr. Trump and his enablers on the restrictionist right are talking about," wrote the Times.
"When they say 'anchor babies,' they are talking about the browning of America, with its growing Latino population, and recasting it as a sinister plot by child-rearing Mexicans. They want to upend the 14th Amendment, and the country's family-based immigration laws, to keep the population as white as can be. Maternity tourism by middle-class foreigners is a separate, much smaller issue; changing the Constitution to stop it, as one immigrant rights advocate once put it, is like killing a fly with an Uzi."
