The Myth of Anchor Babies

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The phrase "anchor baby" slices through political discourse with cruel efficiency. You've heard it—perhaps on news channels, debate stages, or even from the mouths of those who share our heritage. It transforms a newborn child into a tactic, a weapon, a calculated move in some imagined immigration chess game.

But what if everything you've been told about birthright citizenship is fundamentally wrong? While the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born on American soil, the idea that undocumented parents gain immediate legal status through their American-born children is pure fiction. The reality? Parents must wait until that child turns 21 before they can even apply for sponsorship—with no guarantee of approval. This podcast tears apart the notion that people endure dangerous journeys, leave everything behind, and build new lives just to implement a strategy with a 21-year waiting period.

Beyond debunking myths, we dive into the psychology behind why some immigrants themselves perpetuate these harmful narratives. When someone says, "I did it the right way, so should everyone else," they're often protecting their own trauma rather than protecting justice. Immigration isn't a standardized test—it's a survival tactic that looks different for every family based on their unique circumstances, resources, and dangers faced. The uncomfortable truth is that scapegoating immigrants distracts us from asking harder questions about who really benefits from our economic system. While we argue about who deserves to be here, wealth continues to flow upward, not laterally to each of us.

Who gets to belong, and who gets to decide? If you've never questioned the language we use around immigration or considered the human cost of these myths, this episode offers both facts and compassion. Listen, share, and ask someone who believes these myths: "Why do you believe that? Who told you that? What if they were wrong?" Subscribe now and join our community of thinkers who refuse to accept easy answers to complex human questions.

Resources Mentioned:

Stats

May 2025 from IPSOS: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/majority-americans-oppose-ending-birthright-citizenship

May 2025 from NPR: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/15/g-s1-66693/majority-of-americans-oppose-ending-birthright-citizenship-npr-ipsos-poll-finds

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh we could, we could fly.
Welcome back to have a Cup ofJohnny.
This season isn't abouthustling harder.
It's about coming home toyourself, to your voice, to your
breath, to the quiet truth thatyou're still here and you're
not starting over.
You're starting again.

(00:21):
This is your space to reflect,reset and remember who we tell
you.
So pour your cafecito and let'sbegin.
They call them anchor babies andI wish I could say that phrase

(00:42):
only lives in the shadows ofanonymous comment sections.
But no, it's been on the debatestage, on mainstream news, even
said by people who look like me.
It's a term loaded withaccusation that someone gave
birth not out of joy or survivalor hope, but as a tactic, that

(01:10):
the baby was a weapon, that thechild was a scam, that belonging
should be earned.
Today, in have a Cup of Johnny,we are talking about that myth,
not just where it came from,but what it reveals About who we
think deserves to be here andwhy so many of us yes, even

(01:35):
Latinos get caught in the lie.
This is episode 2 in our Julyseries Debunking Immigration.
All right, so I have to do adisclaimer, y'all, because I am
in my living room becauseCharlie does not like to be
alone.
Charlie is the latest rescuedfur baby and he cries whenever

(02:03):
he doesn't see someone.
So I have to be here so thatway he can be quiet.
But you may hear a littlewhimper or a little bark here
and there.
Okay, but let's get into it.
When people say anchor baby,what they're really saying is

(02:23):
this you don't belong and youknew it.
And now you're trying to cheatyour way in and they say what?
This disgust with thiscertainty?
And let me tell you, certaintyis rarely a good substitute for
truth.
Because here's the truth Achild born in the US is a US

(02:46):
citizen.
That's the 14th Amendment.
And here's another truth thatchild cannot anchor their
undocumented parents plural orparent singular, they cannot.
That parent will have to wait21 years until that child is 21.
And even then, familyreunification is not automatic

(03:12):
and it's not guaranteed.
So this idea, which is wild tome, that immigrants come here
just to have babies wait 21years to get papers, it's not

(03:33):
just wrong, it's ridiculous.
But what's more problematic isthat it's almost like it's
designed to make someone resenta child, a literal newborn, as
if birth is this strategy, as ifsurvival is suspicious.
But let me give you some numbershere and these are from 2023

(03:57):
Pew Research Survey.
So, from this 2023 Pew ResearchSurvey, 60% of Americans
believe babies born in the US,even to undocumented parents,
should be granted citizenship.
Ie, they support the currentbirthright law, which is you're
born here.
Regardless of your parents'documentation, you are a citizen

(04:20):
.
But 37% Let me say that again37% disagree, and now that
number right there jumps.
This, which means that thosekids born here, whether their
parents are legal or not, shouldbe citizens.
Whether their parents are legalor not, should be citizens.

(05:15):
Then Rauter's Ipsos, june 2025,shows 52% of Americans support
the 14th Amendment as is, while24% oppose ending birthright
citizenship.
Emerson College polling, june2025, shows 68 percent, while 32

(05:37):
percent opposing it.
Npr Ipsos of May 2025 shows aslim majority of 53% saying keep
it as is and 28% saying no, getrid of it.

(05:57):
We have YouGov that has 51% sayall children born in the US
should automatically becomecitizens and 39% say citizenship
should be granted only ifparents are citizens, and this
poll was taken in February 2025.

(06:18):
The biggest divide in all ofthese is the partisan divide,
and that's what I just said.
So usually far rightconservatives oppose the 14th
amendment, staying as is, whileleft-leaning people or Democrats
, they support the 14thamendment as is, so it's still.

(06:43):
Some margins are smaller thanothers, depending on who did the
research or who did thestatistical pool, but also how
they worded the question as well, because remember that matters
quite a lot in statistics is howyou word the question right.
So, depending on those twofactors that's why statistics

(07:06):
should be taken with a grain ofsalt it still shows a slight
majority of people being for the14th Amendment as opposed to
changing it.
And I also understand as wellthat if you're a conservative
and far right and then yousurround yourself with the same

(07:27):
kind of people as you, then it'sgot to be an echo chamber and
that's what you're going to see,that's what you're going to
hear.
And then you are going to say,well, most of us, or all of us,
disagree, but that's becauseyou're staying in your circle.
The same thing.
If you put the shoe in theother foot, if you're just with
a whole bunch of Democrats orleft-leaning people and that's

(07:52):
all that you consume, that's allthat you're in, then you're
going to be like no, all of usare.
With the current birthright law,if they're born here, they're
citizens, you know, regardlessof their parent status.
So that's why take it with agrain of salt, okay, regardless
of the statistics.
It's not just statistics forthe sake of being statistic,

(08:14):
it's tension.
A country, regardless, is splitbetween those who see birth as
belonging and those who see itas a loophole.
And I want to take like a breakhere and talk to my own
community, my own community ofLatinos, immigrants first, gens,
in-betweeners, becausesometimes the loudest voices

(08:36):
against birthright citizenshipare white.
There are people who did it thehard way, and when I say white,
I mean white Anglo-Saxon.
There are people in ourcommunity who say you know, I
did it, I did it the right way.
What they're really trying tosay is I did it the right way, I
did it the hard way.
What they really want to say isI waited in line, I paid fees,

(08:59):
I did it right.
You know I was miserable, Iwent through this horrible
experience, and so shouldeveryone else.
That's essentially what theysay, and to that I say you're
not wrong about your path, likeyou can boast about that.
You know what I'm saying.
Good for you, you did all ofthat, you achieved something,

(09:21):
but that doesn't make it theonly path and certainly that
doesn't make it the path that isavailable for everyone.
And that's where that mindset iswholly misguided and
short-sighted.
And there's a certainpsychology there as well,
because I'm always thinking whenI come across people online or

(09:44):
in real life, it's just thepsychology behind their actions
and how they feel.
And it's like this.
I feel like they have thismiserable kind of logic that
says, if I suffered, you mustsuffer too.
And, like I showed in thecaption of one of my videos,
it's like those people that arelike no, I don't want student

(10:05):
loans to be forgiven, I paid allof mine and I had to do all of
this and sacrifice and eat ramenand all this other stuff, you
know, and all this other shit,and I'm like so did I.
But if somebody else can gothrough life a little bit easier
, why not?

(10:25):
I don't feel the need to havepeople carry the same trauma
that I do.
You know, I would want the nextgeneration to evolve.
They're going to have their ownevolved trauma that they will
have to deal with, somethingthat we in the generation before
have never come across.
They will have their own.

(10:46):
I didn't come up with socialmedia and all this other stuff,
that whole cyber bullying shit.
That was never me.
I never experienced any of that.
But these kids do you know whatI'm saying?
So, so to say, because Isuffered like this, everyone
else in front of me and the nextgenerations must suffer as well

(11:07):
.
That, to me, is ridiculous, andreally what it is is just
trauma that one has that onewants to pass to others, and you
see this in family cycles, yousee it in classrooms, you see it
in military hazing, and itshows up in immigration too.

(11:28):
I didn't have help, so youshouldn't either.
I gave up everything, so youshould too.
If it was hard for me, youdon't deserve ease.
But here's the problem Onceagain.
We're not all working with thesame resources.
Not the same education, not thesame access, not the same
safety.

(11:48):
Immigration is not astandardized test.
It's a survival tactic.
Most, because I'm not going tosay all most immigrants and I
know that was for my example wedon't come here for the shits
and giggles.
We come here because we need tocome here, because staying over

(12:09):
there means that we would havedied, we wouldn't have survived,
we wouldn't have access tomedical, to education, to upward
mobility, to be able to comeout of that poverty hole that we
was in you see what I'm sayingand to be able to raise our

(12:29):
families and lift our familiesto live and we're not talking
rich, we're just talking to livewith dignity and respect.
You know, we find ourselveswithin a rock and a hard place,
as people say, in order to move,to leave everything behind, to
leave everything that we knowthe language, the culture, the

(12:49):
food, the climate, everythingand go into the unknown.
And that is one of the toughestthings that anyone has to do.
That is literally starting overeverything, starting everything
over.
No one does that lightly.
So that's what I'm saying.
Immigration is not like astandardized test, it's a

(13:12):
survival tactic and it looksdifferent for every family.
So when we applied this, I didit the right way.
Energy we're not protectingjustice.
What we're doing is we'reprotecting our own trauma.
Now let's zoom this out beforeCharlie gets really upset here.

(13:33):
There's another group that buysinto this myth People who have
never had to navigate theimmigration system at all.
They're not close to it, theyjust watch it on social media
and the news, and yet they swearup and down that immigrants are
stealing something.
Jobs, housing, health care anAmerican dream, yada, yada, yada
thing.

(13:54):
Jobs, housing, health care anAmerican dream, yada, yada, yada
.
But if you scratch beneath thesurface, scratch, scratch.
It's not facts holding up thatbelief, it's fear and
manipulation.
I've read, and you heard me talkabout this, you've heard me say
how I read the book Cultish awhile back by Amanda Montel, and
she talks about how cults don'talways look like robes and

(14:15):
rituals as one would see inmovies and things of that nature
.
Sometimes cults look like echochambers, where language becomes
law, where simple answers aresold to complicated questions
and where, most importantly,scapegoats are necessary.
Because, think about it, ifthey can blame immigrants, then

(14:38):
you don't have to ask harderquestions like why is housing so
expensive?
Why are wages so low?
Why are billionaires payingless in taxes than teachers?
And you know what the answer isit's not the immigrant, it's
the system that funnels moneyfrom the bottom up.

(15:00):
That's not immigration, that'sexploitation.
So let's go back to where westarted in this episode anchor
baby.
What if we dropped the insultand just said baby, a baby is a
beginning, a baby is a future.

(15:20):
A baby doesn't anchor, theylift, they grow, they remind us
of what still matters and theybelong.
Here's a real question we needto be asking who gets to belong
and who gets to decide?
If the answer depends on racepaperwork and whether someone

(15:43):
did it the hard way, then maybewe've anchored ourselves to the
wrong values.
If this episode stirs somethingin you, share it.
Share it with somebody who saidthat phrase.
Share it with someone whohasn't thought deeply about it
and ask them why do you believethat?

(16:04):
Who told you that?
What if they were wrong?
In the show notes I've linkedstats from Pew, a breakdown of
the 14th Amendment and a fewarticles to make this very plain
Birthright citizenship isn't aloophole, it's a promise.
Next week we're talking aboutthe myth of just getting lying

(16:26):
and why that lying doesn't existfor most people.
Until then, keep your heartopen, don't let that close, your
facts verified and your empathyloud.
Thank you for having this cupwith me.
See you next Wednesday.
Bye.
If today's episode spoke to you, share with somebody who's

(16:50):
finding their way back too, andif you haven't yet, visit
haveacupofjoanniecom for morestories, blog posts and the bits
that started it all.
Thank you for being here.
Until next time, be soft, bebold and always have a cup of
John.