Category Archives: politicians

The 14th amendment is under stress right now with the pressure from Texas Republicans who are concerned about the “terror babies” being born to illegal immigrants within the U.S. U.S. citizenship is of course to anyone born in America with the 14th amendment. All of the illegal immigrants coming to America pregnant to have their babies are being paid by taxpayers, says Louie Gohmert, Texas congressman, and Debbie Riddle who is the state representative. Next they become sleeper agents back in their own country and return to the U.S. as adults to attack.

Concerns with terror babies

CNN’s Anderson Cooper talked all about the conspiracy theory about terror babies. All the information on terror babies came from “former FBI officials” according to Republicans in Texas, Riddle and Gohmert. Gohmert wants the 14th amendment to be changed which is why terror babies were brought up. Women from other countries have children in the U.S. “with the nefarious purpose of turning them into little terrorists, who’ll then come back to the U.S. and do us harm,” says Riddle. There is no proof that terror babies really exist as they were being pressed by Cooper. Riddle complained on camera that before the taping nobody warned her that she would have to come up with actual facts during the interview.

U.S. laws make little terrorists unlikely

Think Progress explains that these terror babies are unlikely to exist considering U.S. law. Getting a visa to the U.S. is pretty difficult. An officer at the U.S. embassy has to interview these individuals who will provide evidence of their trip purpose, fingerprints and photos. The purpose within the country is usually to work for those immigrant women who do actually have kids in the U.S. who become American citizens.

Getting citizenship with anchor babies

The terror babies idea is an escalated perversion of the “anchor babies” talking point used by Republican senators who argue the 14th amendment needs to be rewritten to curb automatic “birthright citizenship.” However PolitiFact reports that having an anchor baby won’t put a Mexican or Middle Eastern mom on the fast track to become a U.S. citizen. It will take many more than 30 years to do it. Children aren’t able to sponsor their parents who aren’t citizens unless they’re 21 years old. Parents have to be living in their home for 10 years after getting this sponsor before they’ll be allowed to apply to enter the U.S. again.

Lying with FBI evidence

After Gohmert and Riddle spun their terror babies horror story, CNN’s Cooper interviewed Tom Fuentes, who served as the FBI’s assistant director in the office of international operations from 2004 to 2008. According to Fuentes, there has never been anything on terror babies. Elise Hu of the Texas Tribune made an open-records request for communication between Riddle’s office and previous FBI agents. No such records exist.

Further reading

YouTube

youtube.com/watch?v=jUA7obmYvPk

CNN

cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/13/navarrette.terror.babies/

Think Progress

thinkprogress.org/2010/08/13/gohmert-terrorists-immigration/