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This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 5 episode of "Velshi."
In the fall of 1870, in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Wong Kim Ark was born in a bedroom above his father’s grocery store. Wong was one of only 518 American-born Chinese people in the country at the time of his birth, according to the 1870 census.
His parents had moved to San Francisco, commonly referred to by Chinese immigrants as “Gold Mountain,” to seek work. After spending some time in the city following Wong’s birth, the family packed up and moved back to China.
Wong spent four months detained on a steamship in San Francisco Bay, just miles from his birthplace, while the U.S. government insisted he was not a citizen.
While no documentation shows us explicitly why they left, there is some important context worth noting: In 1877, San Francisco’s Chinatown was the site of a riot, where a mob of white men killed Chinese people, destroyed businesses and torched buildings. A few years later, the U.S. Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese laborers from entering the country. Wong spent his childhood going back and forth between the United States and China. In 1895, when Wong was in his 20s, he attempted to return to San Francisco but was denied re-entry to the U.S. via the Chinese Exclusion Act. He spent four months detained on a steamship in San Francisco Bay, just miles from his birthplace, while the U.S. government insisted he was not a citizen.
Again, Wong was born in 1870, two years after the passage of the 14th Amendment. That made him a U.S. citizen by birthright. The 14th Amendment reads, in part:
“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.”
Wong was, quite straightforwardly, a U.S. citizen under the law, so he took his denial of citizenship to court in San Francisco. The government argued that Wong — who was born in the U.S. to parents who were Chinese citizens — was “subject to the jurisdiction” of another country, China.
When the case reached the Supreme Court, the justices sided with Wong, 6 to 2. During arguments, Wong and his legal representation knew their best chance to win was to tie his fate to the many thousands of white children of immigrants who, according to the court’s final decision, “have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States.”The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to address this country’s original sin of slavery and to reverse previous law and court precedent that denied the citizenship and basic humanity of nearly four million formerly enslaved people. But it was Wong’s case that made clear that the 14th Amendment applied to almost all people born on American soil, regardless of race or ancestry. (The 14th Amendment didn’t apply to Native Americans until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.)
Despite the clarity of the 14th Amendment and its history, Wong’s victory was not a given. Anti-Asian, and specifically anti-Chinese sentiment, was high during the time Wong fought his case. The very same Supreme Court that ruled in Wong’s favor had, years earlier, claimed “oriental invasion” was “a menace to our civilization,” when upholding the Chinese Exclusion Act.
But even in that climate, our constitutional principles shone through. That’s why President-elect Donald Trump’s ongoing crusade against birthright citizenship is so alarming. In early December, Trump doubled down on his promise to end birthright citizenship on Day 1 of his presidency. “We have to end it,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker.
The text and the history of birthright citizenship is clear: If you are born in this country, you are a citizen of this country.
Trump then suggested that birthright citizenship is uniquely American, telling Welker, “We’re the only country that has it, you know.” But we are not the only country that has birthright citizenship, excluding the U.S., 32 countries have some form of it. It seems that fact is largely unimportant to Trump, as is the long history of precedent that protects birthright citizenship in this country. If Trump chooses to act on his promise to end birthright citizenship, and is legally challenged, the case may wind up in front of the 6-3 conservative supermajority Supreme Court. We do not know how this new court would act but the text and the history of birthright citizenship is clear: If you are born in this country, you are a citizen of this country.
Establishing that principle, and enshrining it in the Constitution, was an integral part of repudiating this nation’s history of slavery. To undermine the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, in any way, would be a return to some of our nation’s darkest days and a surrender to the worst impulses in American history.
Allison Detzel contributed.