Anchor Baby: Donald Trump, Jeb Bush Defend Use Of Pejorative Term

The Oxford Dictionary defines “anchor baby” as an offensive term, as follows.

“Used to refer to a child born to a noncitizen mother in a country which has birthright citizenship, especially when viewed as providing an advantage to family members seeking to secure citizenship or legal residency.”

The Inqusitr has previously reported on Donald Trump’s discussion of his immigration plan where he makes use of the degrading term anchor baby, and is held to task by Bill O’Reilly for his plan to strip U.S. citizens of their rights under the 14th Amendment.

Trump and and his supporters feel that a certain percentage of foreigners travel to America, specifically to give birth to a baby, and secure American citizenship — and that this must be stopped. Florida Governor Jeb Bush appears to allow for the fact that foreigners do indeed come to the U.S. to have anchor babies, but that this is an inherent part of upholding an important amendment to the U.S. Constitution — one that adds more to the nation than detracts from it.

Trump was questioned about his use of the the anchor baby term by Tom Llamas, a reporter with ABC. Here Llamas can seen scolding Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQrVJCtpqGI

“That’s an offensive term, people find that hurtful,” Llamas can be seen stating to Trump.

“You mean it’s not politically correct and yet everybody uses it,” says Trump.

“Look it up in the dictionary. It’s offensive!” Llamas replies.

“I’ll use the word anchor baby, excuse me! I’ll use the word anchor baby,” Trump finishes his statement with.

“The language is pretty vitriolic for sure,” the video then cuts to Jeb Bush, who is speaking before a group of supporters.

However, also uploaded to YouTube today is a second video, depicting Bush speaking about the anchor baby term at length.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7enTBT6zZ88

“Governor, do you regret using the term anchor babies yesterday on the radio?” a reporter off-screen can be heard asking.

“No, I didn’t,” Bush responds.

“You don’t?” the reporter asks again.

“No, I don’t regret it. Do you have a better term?” Bush asks, “You give me a better term and I’ll use it. I’m serious.”

“Is that not bombastic language? Anchor baby,” ABC’s Tom Llamas, who seems to be everywhere at once, can be seen asking, “Is that not bombastic language?”

“No it isn’t,” Bush states again, “Give me another word.”

“[Unintelligible] undocumented immigrants in the U.S.,” Llamas proposes.

“That’s like a seven, that’s not another word. That’s a seven… Look here’s the deal. What I said is that it’s commonly referred to that. That’s what I said. I didn’t use it as my own language. What we ought to do is protect the 14th… You want to get to the policy for second? I think people born in this country should be American citizens.”

Anchor baby began trending on the internet today as many Americans join the conversation. What do you think? Is the term anchor baby offensive? Should presidential candidates be using it?

[Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images]