This morning on Fox & Friends, Steve Doocy introduced us to a Rollins College freshman who, in Doocy's retelling, is being harshly and unduly criticized for “simply giving her opinion” in an op-ed (registration required) for her college newspaper. That opinion, its merit, and the coherence of its expression can all be gleaned from the op-ed's title: “Illegal Babies Should Be Illegal Citizens.” What the hell is an “illegal citizen,” you ask? Your guess is as good as mine.

I'm not here to bash on a college op-ed, but a brief summary is required: birthright citizenship is bad, “pregnant foreigner[s]” are at this moment “waltz[ing] right over our borders” to have “anchor babies,” and the 14th Amendment should be changed so that America will attract “only the best and the brightest to its golden shores.” Apparently, and unsurprisingly, she took some heat for her poorly articulated nativism and that provided the hook for Doocy, who offered up this confused student as yet another victim of liberal academia, or something.

Imagine that. Someone was criticized for offering a controversial opinion. Quelle horreur.

The infuriating aspect of this is the assumption that “anchor babies” actually exist and are a valid topic for debate. They're a myth. The Pew Hispanic Center found that the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants who became parents between 2009 and 2010 had already been in the country for years. People enter the country illegally looking for work, not to have children.

But Fox News' reality, of course, is a very different place where the idea of pregnant women dancing freely across the border to give birth isn't just true, it's beyond criticism.