Illegal Immigrant Births - At Your Expense

McALLEN, Texas, April 7, 2008

(CBS) It was 5 a.m. and CBS News national correspondent Byron Pitts is with a woman who is nine months pregnant. She's rushed to a south Texas hospital to undergo a C-section - a $4,700 medical procedure that won't cost her a dime. She qualifies for emergency Medicaid.

She gave birth to a healthy, 8 1/2 pound baby boy - born in America. His Mexican mother gave him an American name: Eliot.

Eliot is one of an estimated 300,000 children of illegal immigrants born in the United States every year, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. They're given instant citizenship because they are born on U.S. soil, which makes it easier for their parents to become U.S. citizens.

That's because those babies can eventually sponsor their parents - when they turn 21 years old.

It's a "better" life ... that American taxpayers help pay for.

Take healthcare for example -- an estimated $1.1 billion per year for undocumented men, women and children, according to the Rand Corporation.