Wong Kim Ark’s Legacy vs. Trump: Supreme Court Revisits 128-Year-Old Birthright Rule

President Donald Trump's challenge to the longstanding rule that anyone born in the United States, with only narrow exceptions, is automatically a citizen echoes a similar dispute that took place on the shores of San Francisco more than a century ago. In the late 19th century, amid a wave of fervent anti-Chinese sentiment, the U.S. government sought to prevent a young man named Wong Kim Ark from re-entering the country upon returning by steamship from a trip to his parents' homeland of China, contending that, despite being born in the United States, he was not a citizen. On March 28, 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, recognizing that the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment grants citizenship by birth on U.S. soil, including to those like Wong whose parents were foreign nationals.

Now his great-grandson, a San Francisco area resident, worries that the principle enshrined by his ancestor's case may be in peril. "Wong Kim Ark knew he was an American. And he demanded that his citizenship be recognized. He was willing to stand up," Norman Wong, 76, said in an interview. "Wong Kim Ark didn't make the rule. He affirmed the rule." That 128-year-old understanding will be contested again at the Supreme Court on Wednesday when the justices hear arguments over the legality of Trump's executive order that would deny automatic citizenship to babies born in the United States if neither parent is an American citizen or legal permanent resident.

Though he was unaware of the legacy of his great-grandfather for most of his life, Norman Wong has since spent years learning about it, and last year visited his family's ancestral village in China. The Trump administration is offering "fake arguments and fake reasons" to accomplish a dangerous goal that is contrary to the American dream, the retired carpenter said. Trump's fight at the Supreme Court "was settled 128 years ago," Wong said. "We're just revisiting it." The Republican president's directive, issued in January 2025 on his first day back in office as part of a sweeping crackdown on immigration, carried through on threats Trump had made for years to try to restrict birthright citizenship.

The administration has said automatic citizenship creates incentives for illegal immigration and leads to "birth tourism," by which foreigners travel to the United States to give birth and secure citizenship for their children. Critics call Trump's directive a plainly unconstitutional action rooted in racially discriminatory anti-immigrant views. Trump's order would refuse to recognize the citizenship of babies of immigrants who are in the country illegally or whose presence is lawful but temporary, such as university students or those on work visas. The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has repeatedly let Trump expand mass deportation measures on an interim basis while legal challenges play out. While the court gave Trump an initial victory last year regarding judicial powers, it did not resolve the legality of the birthright citizenship directive—something Wednesday's case is expected to do.