The Wong Kim Ark case
Wong Kim Ark, a laborer, was born in 1873 in San Francisco. His parents were of Chinese descent but lived legally in the United States. Around age 17, he left for a temporary visit to China, and returned to the United States without incident. Then, around age 21, he left again for a visit to China, but at the end of that trip, he was denied re-entry to the United States because the collector of customs argued that he was not a U.S. citizen. (This was no small distinction -- it was the era of anti-immigrant strictures known as the Chinese Exclusion Acts.)
The Supreme Court framed the case this way in its majority decision:
The question presented by the record is whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, "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."
The majority ruled that Wong -- and others born on United States soil, with a few clear exceptions -- did indeed qualify for citizenship under the 14th Amendment, which reads in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." The majority wrote:
The Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.
So what does this mean for Paul’s claim?
He is right that the facts of Wong Kim Ark didn’t concern illegal immigrants who had a child while on U.S. soil. Rather, Wong’s parents were in the United States legally when he was born.
"Sen. Paul is correct," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a Cornell University law professor. "Wong Kim Ark was a child of parents who resided legally in the United States. The Supreme Court has not ruled explicitly on a citizenship case involving children born in the United States to undocumented parents."
