Is this what we meant by advancement?

Rape is just part of the price of admission. How crazy is that? Yet it's true, according to the Associated Press. As more women enter the United States illegally (a decade-long trend), more of them are raped in the desert and the rough-and-tumble border towns they must traverse to get here. The AP reports, "Rape has become so prevalent that many women take birth-control pills or shots before setting out to ensure they won't get pregnant. Some consider rape 'the price you pay for crossing the border,' said Teresa Rodriguez, regional director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women."

All this, as illegal immigration puts on a new face–a female face. The percentage of women risking all (rape is one possibility, death is another) to enter the United States without work permits or visas has ballooned in the past decade. A new report out last week by "U.S. and Mexican migration experts, partly funded by the Mexican government, found that nearly half of all Mexican migrants living in the United States are women," the AP tells us. And these women are younger than in past decades. "Of migrants under 18 deported to Mexico, females accounted for only 2 percent in 1994, when the U.S. started cracking down at the border. Since 2002, they have made up nearly a third each year, said Blanca Villase񯲬 who recently published a book on Mexico's female migrants."

By some estimates, these women are delivering more than 400,000 newborns after they arrive, making the babies birthright citizens. So the term "anchor babies" is making the rounds to describe the babies whom pregnant, illegal migrants deliver on U.S. soil.

While more women are being raped as they cross the border, others, according to immigration experts, time their entry to ensure birthright citizenship for their children. That, in turn, has sparked a movement in Congress to reserve birthright citizenship for children of U.S. citizens and legal residents. Republican Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia has signed up 83 GOP cosponsors for a bill that would change constitutional interpretation to include these new limitations. But like federal bans on illegal immigration, Deal's bill is essentially a bridge to nowhere. He told USA Today that he "doesn't expect the measure to be included in any broader reform package this year but hopes it generates debate."