Wong Kim Ark v. U.S

Wong Kim Ark

Wong Kim Ark v. U.S. was a Supreme Court decision highly debated in March 28, 1898 that expressed the issue that determined legal United States citizenship by those who are rightfully born in the United States cannot be stripped of their own citizenship. Those who leave the country and return are considered a citizen no matter where they go. By the first clause of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States in 1868, “all person 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.” This clause applies to any children born of any race in the United States are born a citizen to that country.

Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, California and a United States citizen while his parents are Chinese immigrants, resided in the U.S. are not citizens of the United States. Wong Kim Ark is a citizen by birth and had any rights of being a U.S. citizen. Wong Kim Ark went on a trip to China and came back to the United States but was detained at the port due to the fact that he was “although born in the city and county of San Francisco, State of California, United States of America, is not, under the laws of the State of California and of the United States, a citizen thereof, the mother and father of the said Wong Kim Ark being Chinese persons and subjects of the Emperor of China, and the said Wong Kim Ark being also a Chinese person and a subject of the Emperor of China.” Wong Kim Ark was restrained of his rights as a United States citizen by the collector due to the fact that that the collector’s assumption of how Wong Kim Ark looked as a Chinese man and assumed that he was an immigrant more than the fact that Kim Ark was ‘not’ a U.S. citizen. He later went to court to address the issue and was appealed on the grounds that he is a citizen.

Sworn Statement of Wong Kim Ark

This also alluded to the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 where the United States excluded the Chinese from coming to the United States or being naturalized U.S. citizens. This meant that those who are already reside in the United States are not naturalized as U.S. citizens but they are able to stay but once they leave they cannot return. This act did not apply to Wong Kim Ark because he was a natural born citizen of the United States. But this Act was eventually repealed in 1943.


posted by Jackie Huynh