United States v. Wong Kim Ark facts for kids
Quick facts for kids United States v. Wong Kim Ark |
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| Argued March 5, 8, 1897 Decided March 28, 1898 |
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| Full case name | United States v. Wong Kim Ark |
| Citations | 169 U.S. 649 (more)
18 S.Ct. 456; 42 L.Ed. 890
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| Prior history | Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California; 71 F. 382 |
| Holding | |
| Children born in the United States of foreigners permanently domiciled and resident in the U.S. at the time of birth automatically acquire U.S. citizenship via the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Gray, joined by Brewer, Brown, Shiras, White, Peckham |
| Dissent | Fuller, joined by Harlan |
| McKenna took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV | |
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a child born in the United States to parents of Chinese descent automatically becomes a U.S. citizen by birth based on the Citizenship Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Contents
Background
Wong Kim Ark (Chinese: 黃金德; Taishanese: Wōng Gim-ak), was born in San Francisco, California, at 751 Sacramento Street, the address of a Chinatown business (Quong Sing) maintained by his merchant parents. Various sources state or imply his year of birth as being 1873, 1871, or 1868. His father, Wong Si Ping, and mother, Lee Wee, emigrated from Taishan, Guangdong, China and were not United States citizens, as the Naturalization Law of 1802 had made them ineligible for naturalization either before or after his birth. Wong did not become a merchant like his father, but worked as a cook in Chinatown restaurants.
In 1889, Wong Kim Ark, then in his late teens, left for China with his parents, who decided to repatriate to China and to their ancestral village in Taishan, Ong Sing. While in Taishan, Wong Kim Ark married Yee Shee from a village near his familial one. Returning to the United States in 1890, he left behind in Taishan not only his parents but also his wife, who gave birth to their first son after he returned to California. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, he as a laborer could not bring his wife to the United States. Upon arrival alone at San Francisco in July 1890, he was readmitted on the ground that he was a native-born citizen of the United States, but only after an unnamed Bureau of Immigration official left a note in his file questioning the veracity of his claim of birth in the United States.
In November 1894, Wong sailed to China for another temporary visit, to rejoin his wife at his family's village in Taishan, Guangdong. He met his oldest son for the first time, and his second son was conceived. But when he returned in August 1895 by SS Coptic, he was detained at the Port of San Francisco by the Collector of Customs, who denied him permission to enter the country, arguing that Wong was not a U.S. citizen despite his having been born in the U.S., but was instead a Chinese subject because his parents were Chinese. Wong was confined for five months on steamships off the coast of San Francisco while his case was being tried.
Ark did not know at the time his situation would be used as a test case by the United States government. The anti-Chinese sentiment at the time was trying to undermine the Fourteenth Amendment provision which made Ark a citizen in the first place. It said “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” Since the beginning, America had welcomed people from other countries. The Chinese came to America, mined its gold, built its railways and farmed much of northern California. But when the Panic of 1873 struck, it caused a major depression where many in the U.S. lost their jobs. The Chinese workers, who worked for very low wages, became scapegoats and were blamed for much of the trouble. There was mob violence and arson against Chinese workers in California. As a part of this, Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to try to stop Chinese immigration into the U.S.
With legal support from the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Ark sued the U.S. government. A District court issued a writ of Habeas corpus on Ark's behalf. Government lawyers challenged the writ. The issue was whether his birth in San Francisco made him a citizen of the United States. The argument against Ark was his parents were subjects of China which made Ark a subject of China as well. Therefore, he was not, in the words of the Fourteenth Amendment, "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and was therefore not a U.S. citizen. Both China and Japan held that children born to their citizens, wherever they were born, was based on their bloodline. Chinese law stated children born to Chinese nationals were citizens of China, as long as their birth is properly registered in China. The U.S. is mainly a country of citizenship by soil, also called Jus soli. This means they are citizens, by 'right of the soil', based on the state, territory or country in which they were born. Lawyers for the federal government claimed that Chinese citizenship law was more important than U.S. citizenship law in this case. The Supreme Court disagreed.
Supreme Court decision
Both parties had agreed to the following facts of the case:
- Wong Kim Ark was born in 1873 in San Francisco, California.
- His parents were of Chinese descent and subjects of the Emperor of China.
- At the time of his birth they lived in the United States until 1890 when they departed for China.
- At the time, his parents were engaged in business and were not diplomats of the Emperor of China.
- Wong Kim Ark has never lost or changed his residence.
- At no time has Ark (or his parents for him) renounced his allegiance to the United States.
- At no time has Ark ever committed an act that might exclude him from citizenship.
- That he made two visits to China to see his parents, once in 1890 and again in 1894.
- In 1890 he was allowed to enter the United States as a citizen but was denied entry in 1894 on the grounds he was not a citizen.
- That if he is a citizen of the United States, the Chinese Exclusion Acts do not apply to him.
The question was whether the government could deny citizenship to persons born in the United States in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court ruled that Ark is an American citizen by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Horace Gray delivered the majority opinion of the Court.
Significance
The case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark set a legal precedent for all children born in the United States, regardless of their parents' status or citizenship. During the campaigning for the United States presidential election, 2016, the issue of children born in this country to undocumented aliens has come up again. Because of Wong Kim Ark, a child born in the U.S. is a citizen regardless of his or her parents’ citizenship or status. This could change by means of a Constitutional amendment, but this is a lengthy and difficult process.
Legislative attempts to overturn Wong Kim Ark
On October 30, 2018, President Donald Trump announced his intention to issue an executive order abolishing birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of non-citizens. On this same date, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he would introduce legislation in Congress to accomplish the same thing. Neither Trump's promised executive order nor Graham's planned bill materialized before Trump left office in January 2021.
Images for kids
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Wong Kim Ark, in a photograph taken from a 1904 U.S. immigration document
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An 1894 notarized statement by witnesses attesting to the identity of Wong Kim Ark. A photograph of Wong is affixed to the statement.
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Associate Justice Horace Gray wrote the opinion of the Court in the Wong Kim Ark case.
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Chief Justice Melville Fuller wrote the dissent in the Wong Kim Ark case.
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Signatures, on various U.S. immigration documents, of Wong Kim Ark's four sons: Wong Yoke Fun (黃毓煥); Wong Yook Sue (黃郁賜); Wong Yook Thue (黃沃修); and Wong Yook Jim (黃沃沾)
