One of the biggest mistakes of Donald Trump’s first term in office (other than “ten days to slow the spread”) was his failure to revoke America’s insane anchor baby policy. That should have been an executive order issued on January 20, 2017. Fortunately, it looks like President Trump is not going to repeat that mistake in his second term. It is time to finally put an end to this lunatic policy that grants the gift of citizenship to any foreign baby who happens to be born on US soil. The latest figures show that there were almost 400,000 anchor babies born in the US in 2024 and most of them were children of illegal aliens.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, there were 300,000 anchor babies born to parents who were in the country illegally last year. Another estimated 72,000 were born to foreign tourists, visa workers, and foreign students. At nearly 400,000 anchor babies, that’s more than the population of New Orleans.

One thing that most Americans don’t realize is that as soon as an illegal alien pushes out an anchor baby, they become eligible to apply for lavish welfare benefits. Food stamps, rental assistance, cash assistance, “free” health insurance, “free” Obamaphones from the government—they’re eligible for everything and they know this. They immediately sign up for the benefits and start collecting them. It also makes it nearly impossible to deport the parents after they give birth to a little “American.”

Another thing many Americans don’t realize is that no law was ever passed that grants automatic citizenship to foreigners born on US soil. Aside from the fact that it would be crazy for a country to do that, there’s no law behind this policy! It’s just a policy!

Liberals like to claim that the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment applies, but this is a lie. The 14th Amendment was written and passed after the Civil War to prevent bitter Democrats from deporting their newly freed black slaves back to Africa.

The Republican who wrote the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment—Senator Jacob Howard—stated that the amendment in no way applied to children born to foreigners:

“This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.”

So, where did this absurd anchor baby policy that no other country is crazy enough to implement come from?

A footnote from Supreme Court Justice John Brennan in 1982. In Doe v. Plyer, Brennan wrote a footnote stating that he was unable to tell the difference between a resident alien and an illegal alien for purposes of the 14th Amendment. If Brennan were still alive, you could point out to him that one type of alien came into the country legally and the other came illegally. That would be the distinction.

As a reminder, Supreme Court footnotes on cases are not “laws.” They’re just notes that have no legal basis behind them. Between 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted, and Brennan’s 1982 footnote, no babies born to illegal aliens were granted automatic citizenship status in America. That was the law for 114 years until a footnote in a court case from a single judge was somehow allowed to replace a constitutional amendment.

The problem is not just the 300,000 anchor babies born to illegal aliens every year. The problem is that the 600,000 parents of those anchor babies can then collect welfare benefits and stay in the US indefinitely. It’s time to finally end this insane “policy” that Congress never voted on. President Trump can and should do that on day one.