November 9, 2010: State Lawmaker Accuses Immigrant Women of ‘Multiply[ing] Like Rats’

During a legislative hearing, Tennessee State Representative Curry Todd (R-TN) asks a health official if the state-funded Cover Kids health program, which helps pregnant women obtain prenatal and other child care, checks the immigration status of its patients before offering benefits. The official replies that under federal law the program officials cannot check the citizenship status of its patients seeking prenatal care because all children born in the US are automatically American citizens. Todd then warns that without status checks, immigrants will “go out there like rats and multiply.” No one else on the Fiscal Review Committee challenges his remarks. Todd later tells reporters that he was wrong to use that choice of words, and should have referred to “anchor babies” instead—the term used by some to accuse immigrants of having children in America for the sole purpose of using those children’s citizenship to stay in the country. Immigrant rights advocate Stephen Fotopulos says Todd’s remark is inexcusable. “This kind of dehumanizing rhetoric is all too common on some talk radio shows, where hate sells and there’s no accountability,” Fotopulos says. “But there’s absolutely no excuse for it to come out of the mouth of an elected official in Tennessee.” The progressive news Web site Think Progress calls the term “anchor babies” “unquestionably offensive.” [Associated Press, 11/11/2010; Think Progress, 11/11/2010]