At least 60,000 babies born each year to illegal immigrants in Texas gain ‘birthright citizenship’

by: John Egan, August 8, 1:09 PM - Austin Market Examiner

As the debate over birthright citizenship rages across the United States, a statistic has surfaced that is sure to add fuel to the birthright fire in Texas: 60,000 to 65,000 babies automatically gain U.S. citizenship each year when they're born to the estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants who live in the Lone Star State.

That figure, reported by the Dallas Morning News, comes from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The yearly birth number is equivalent to the population of Austin suburb Cedar Park—about 62,000, according to a 2009 estimate.

Last year, births to illegal immigrants represented nearly 16 percent of the total births statewide, according to the newspaper.

Between 2001 and 2009, births to illegal immigrant women totaled 542,152 in Texas, the Dallas Morning News reported. That’s about the same number of people who live in the city of Atlanta.

See More @ [Birth Right Citizenship]

Posted By: Carlos T. Alfaro

Summer 2010