This Man Won Birthright Citizenship for All

When officials denied that he was a citizen, Wong Kim Ark took his case to the Supreme Court and won. Today, that decision is the focus of debate over who can be an American.

In August 1895, a young cook named Wong Kim Ark was about to disembark from the S.S. Coptic, after a long journey home to San Francisco from China, when U.S. customs officials denied him re-entry.

He was not a U.S. citizen, they said. Never mind that Mr. Wong had been born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, not far from the port where he was now being held. The 14th Amendment’s provision for automatic citizenship for all people born on U.S. soil did not apply to him, officials later argued, because he and his parents were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. at the time he was born.

Rather than back down, Mr. Wong took his case to the courts — and won.

In Mr. Wong’s case, the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutional guarantee of automatic citizenship for nearly all children born in the United States, a right that has deep roots in common law. Since that 1898 ruling, that expansive understanding of birthright citizenship has been the law of the land.

Now, the Trump administration wants to roll back the Wong Kim Ark ruling — and birthright citizenship more broadly — as it moves to crack down on immigration.

On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order declaring that the government would stop treating U.S.-born children of parents who are undocumented or are in the country temporarily as U.S. citizens.