Let's kick off 2007 with a little immigration mania, shall we?

Yuki Lin, born on the stroke of midnight this New Year's, became the winner of a random drawing for a national Toys "R" Us sweepstakes. The company had promised a $25,000 U.S. savings bond to the "first American baby born in 2007." However, Yuki lost her prize after the company learned that her mother was an undocumented U.S. resident. Instead, the bond went to a baby in Gainesville, Georgia, described by her mother as "an American all the way."

The question is unambiguously answered by the 14^th Amendment, which asserts that a child born on U.S. soil is an American citizen, having equal standing with all other American citizens. Nevertheless, this incident brings to light some pretty deep-seated beliefs about who is legitimately American and who, clearly, is not.

These issues are explored in a great article by Priscilla Huang on Tom Paine, which raises the question: Which babies are real Americans?

Due to some intense pressure, Toys "R" Us reversed its decision and awarded savings bonds to all three babies who were contenders, including Yuki. This controversy may be settled, but Huang's larger question remains: "Is a baby born to undocumented immigrants an American in the same way that a baby born to non-immigrant parents is?"

The trend of fear and hatred of immigrants, especially people of color, manifests itself in some very troubling ways. Not only do anti-immigrant activists aim to limit the rights of immigrant peoples but also serves as a way to define who can be called an American at all. In addition to policies that limit the rights of immigrants, anti-immigrant activists want us to believe that American citizenship is not about where you were born, but who gave birth to you. Perfectly exemplified by a statement made by the grandmother of the Gainesville baby, "If [the mother is] an illegal alien, that makes the baby illegal."

By this point, you can probably guess what comes next. The restriction of the rights of pregnant women and the targeting of immigrant women who happen to be of childbearing age. Anti-immigrant groups, like the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), claim that these women are the cause of, what they ridiculously call, the nation's "illegal immigration crisis." In arguments that suspiciously harkens back to those made during the 1990's welfare reform policies, these groups claim that immigrant women enter the U.S. solely to give birth to "anchor babies" who can, upon turning 21, sponsor their relatives. This kind of reasoning falsely depicts poor women of color as unfit mothers and freeloaders who drain social resources. And as it was in the 90's, this unproven and essentially false rationale is catching on.

In Congress, lawmakers introduced the Citizenship Reform Act, which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny birthright citizenship to children of parents who are neither citizens nor permanent resident aliens. The bill was reintroduced last month by Representative Elton Gallegly, R-CA, and is pending committee action.

Huang also points to the illegitimate reasoning of these groups:

Several studies have shown that immigrants—documented and undocumented—access social welfare services at much lower rates than U.S.-born citizens. Furthermore, under the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, new immigrants are barred from accessing Medicaid benefits for five years, and sponsor liability rules often render many of these immigrants ineligible for services even after expiration of that restriction. And there is no evidence of intergenerational welfare dependency between immigrant parents and children.

Not surprisingly, pregnant immigrant women have become targets for deportation by immigration officials. And in a strange, but unsurprising turn, these organizations and policymakers are bedfellows with the anti-choice movement.

Anti-immigrant policy makers and advocates are also trying to exploit anti-immigrant hysteria as a vehicle for denying all women the right to reproductive autonomy, and are manipulating the issue of immigration reform to advance an anti-choice agenda. In November 2006, a report from the Missouri House Special Committee on Immigration Reform concluded that abortion was partly to blame for the "problem of illegal immigration" because it caused a shortage of American workers. As the author, Rep. Edgar Emery (R), explained: "If you kill 44 million of your potential workers, it's not too surprising we would be desperate for workers."

What might seem like really far-fetched argumentation is actually neither rare nor ineffective in the politics of race and reproduction. These are dangerous assertions that place social burdens on women's bodies and make assumptions about who are valuable citizens and who are expendable. The common thread in this kind of thinking: women's rights are always subject to seizure, whether it is the right of pregnant immigrants or citizens who want reproductive health care rights. Immigrant rights are, in all these ways, inextricably tied to reproductive rights. We as supporters of reproductive rights cannot ignore issues of immigration and must instead offer our own answer to the question: which babies are real Americans?

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For more information on how reproductive justice links to other social justice movements via immigration politics see the articles below.

• From the Borderline to the Colorline: A Report on Anti-Immigrant Racism in the United States published by the National Network of Immigrant and Refugee Rights. This organization does excellent work that counters organizations like FAIR. Check out their many resources.

• For an excellent analysis of race, reproduction and welfare reform see Dorothy Roberts' article in the Boston Review.

• Organizations like FAIR also link their threat-mongering around immigration to other issues like the environment; arguments that have been well-refuted.

• For a collection of articles about these issues, national and international, see the newly published Babies, Burdens and Threats from the Population and Development Program.