section_path: Legal issues/Deportation/Complications of birthright citizen children and illegal immigrant parents
section_name: Complications of birthright citizen children and illegal immigrant parents
paragraph_text: Complications of birthright citizen children and illegal immigrant parents
  
  Complications in deportation efforts ensue when parents are illegal immigrants, but their children are birthright citizens. Federal appellate courts have upheld the refusal by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to stay the deportation of illegal immigrants merely on the grounds that they have US-citizen, minor children. As of 2005, there were some 3.1 million United States citizen children living in families in which the head of the family or a spouse was an illegal immigrant; at least 13,000 children had one or both parents deported in the years 2005–2007.