Jindal, too, for ending US citizenship for 'anchor babies'

Indian-American presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal has drawn flak for joining Republican front-runner Donald Trump in using the controversial term “anchor babies” for children of illegal immigrants born in the US and demanding that they should not get automatic American citizenship.Jindal, who has been trailing behind a host of aspirants, is being reminded by critics that he, too, has been a beneficiary of the US statutory provision of citizenship by birth. They point out that Jindal’s mother was three months pregnant when she came to the US from India and gave birth to him.

But the man who went on to become louisiana’s Governor has been quick to retort that his parents came into the country legally while the “anchor babies” controversy is all about illegal immigrants giving birth on American soil and thereby anchoring their family’s stay in the United States on the assumption that the authorities will be lenient to them.

Jindal campaign spokesman Kyle Plotkin dismissed as absurd any move to brand the Governor an anchor baby. “By the way, the Governor’s mother was here as a permanent resident not on a student visa, which makes the question not just ridiculous but irrelevant,” he told CBS News in a recent email. A day after Trump laid out his tough measures against illegal immigration, Jindal himself tweeted: “We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants.” He, however, did not explicitly use the term “anchor babies”.  

Questioned on this aspect by Fox News, Jindal first avoided a direct answer, but then said he would use the term. “Folks today are too easily offended. they’re too politically correct,” he said, adding: “Yeah I’m happy to use the term — but the… real issue here is we need to secure our border”.The US has an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, including about 300,000 from India. They are called “undocumented” by the authorities, but the blunt Trump would have none of this “political correctness”. For him, they are all illegals, plain and simple, and their children born in the US are “anchor babies”.