“By Accident of Birth”: The Battle over Birthright Citizenship after United States v. Wong Kim Ark

In theory, birthright citizenship has been well established in U.S. law since 1898, when the Supreme Court held in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that all persons born on U.S. soil are U.S. citizens. However, this study shows how Chinese-Americans were challenged, and often blocked from citizenship in the years that followed. The U.S. government reacted to its loss in Wong’s case at first by refusing to accept the rule of birthright citizenship, and then by creating onerous proof-of-citizenship requirements that obstructed recognition of birthright citizenship for certain ethnic groups. Among those most affected by this discriminatory policy were the children of Chinese-American citizens, who under U.S. law were entitled to citizenship as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. The ban against Chinese immigration, however, also created a cottage industry of fraudulent claims of citizenship. The result was a system in which fraudulent claimants competed with legitimate ones, all in a battle with immigration officials seeking to keep the Chinese out of the United States.

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