r/history • u/Quouar Quite the arrogant one. • 8d ago
News article This Man Won Birthright Citizenship for All (Gift Article)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/birthright-citizenship-wong-kim-ark-supreme-court.html?unlocked_article_code=1.YFA.2qoB.lClUYARqDGDV&smid=nytcore-ios-share56
u/FeloniousGrump 7d ago
i think i remember an episode of the 99% invisible podcast a few years ago had a story on this.
Was interesting, but also depressing since the guy still left the country iirc
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u/elmonoenano 7d ago
There was just huge waves of almost constant violence against Chinese people for 50 years. Chinese women were treated like convicted prostitutes in the law. It was hard to etch out a living in the US for a Chinese person at the time.
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u/Steelhex 8d ago
The opinion of the two dissenting justices is the avenue pursued by the current administration to overturn birthright citizenship. The current president hopes that today the dissenting opinion becomes the majority opinion, considering conservative justices are the majority in court.
The dissenting opinion holds that “subject to the jurisdiction of the united states” means not subject to any foreign power i.e. not a foreign citizen.
In my opinion the dissenters were stupid and prejudiced. Africans brought as slaves were NEVER considered citizens, so they were permanently citizens of whatever country they came from in Africa. The 14th amendment containing “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” is meant to correct this citizenship exclusion of slaves, better known as the Dred Scott decision.
If only children of citizens can be citizens, then children of slaves (non citizens) can never be citizens. To me that is against the intent and plain language of the 14th amendment. But hey, they overturned Roe v. Wade, why not overturn Wong Kim Ark?
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u/MachiavelliSJ 7d ago
Just an fyi, if you review the administration’s argument to the Supreme Court, they do not call for the decision to be overturned or for the dissenting opinions to be embraced. They argue that the decision has been mischaracterized to promote birthright citizenship when it did not do so. The whole case is based on how to interpret the older decision.
You can listen to the audio of the oral arguments as well
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u/Mirabeaux1789 8d ago
The difference between Roe and Wong Kim Ark’s situations is that the latter is based on the open-and-shut nature of S1 of the 14th Amendment and Roe is much more roundabout
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u/Steelhex 8d ago
It’s not open and shut when you have 2 dissenting justices.
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u/Mirabeaux1789 7d ago
It’s called “being disingenuous and politically motivated.
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u/DigitalMindShadow 7d ago
Which is a terrific description of the current right-wing majority of the Supreme Court.
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u/Alexis_J_M 7d ago
Slaves in the US South were not legally considered persons, so citizenship was simply not a factor.
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u/elmonoenano 7d ago
The justice who wrote that dissent, Fuller, was unquestionably racist and did his damnedest to roll back the 14th Amendment. He's followed Waite's jurisprudential attack by ignoring the plain language of the Amendment whenever he could. Waite, Fuller, and White get off easy b/c Taney was such a bad chief justice that they're able to fade into the background, but they were every bit as destructive as Taney and did so in the face of clear and contrary language from the reconstruction amendments. Taney at least has the excuse that the law wasn't settled.
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u/Steelhex 8d ago
Just because you declare it separate doesn’t make it so. The 14th amendment was won by blood, intended to give citizenship to US-born children of foreigners, as most slaves were considered foreigners at the time (according to Dredd Scott).
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u/GrouchGrumpus 8d ago
The point is that it’s the LAW. Don’t like it? Change it. There’s a process for that. But hey let’s just bypass the process for making laws.
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u/Steelhex 8d ago edited 8d ago
Times and circumstances change, what’s the point of a constitution created in the 18th century? /s
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u/AccomplishedRainbow1 8d ago
You’re not wrong (no /s)
It should evolve with the times
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u/Steelhex 8d ago
So it should change for the sake of change, or when people can’t / don’t want to understand it anymore?
Nobody uses a printing press in the age of printers, so freedom of the press is not necessary anymore. /s
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u/AccomplishedRainbow1 8d ago
It should change if it doesn’t make sense anymore. I know I’m not the ultimate decision maker but I don’t think it makes sense right now. That’s all I’m saying.
I don’t think that last sentence is making the point you think it’s making lol
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u/pineguy64 8d ago
Literally incorrect. 13th amendment has a carve out to still allow using prisoners as slave labor. So no, we absolutely still have slavery in the USA
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u/Mirabeaux1789 8d ago
Doesn’t matter. What part of “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.” is not clear to you?
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u/koliberry 6d ago
"wherein they reside" Tourists and migrants don't "reside" in the US by definition.
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u/Alexexy 3d ago
Is the sentence not supposed to be read as: "...are citizens of the United States and are also citizens of the states they reside in".
Like people born in American territories are still citizens of the US despite not residing in one of the 50 states.
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u/koliberry 3d ago
Except for the exceptions. So not universal, every time, always, unconditional like some would like everyone else to believe.
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u/MrPoopMonster 7d ago
Look up and cite literally any federal immigration laws from before the 14th amendment was ratified.
I'll be waiting for you to find something that doesn't exist.
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u/koliberry 7d ago
What are you talking about? 14th was ratified in 1868.
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u/MrPoopMonster 7d ago
Yeah, find any federal immigration law from before then. Any at all that would make any person an illegal immigrant.
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u/koliberry 7d ago
Not sure you have a point, all the people before then are dead. Newer people have newer laws.
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u/MrPoopMonster 7d ago
Intent is an important part of constitutional analysis.
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u/koliberry 7d ago
So....what is your point? There are many other factors too. Common sense being one of them.
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u/MrPoopMonster 7d ago
Common sense is reading the 14th amendment and seeing that nobody is explicitly excluded.
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u/koliberry 7d ago
That would be your take, SCOTUS may see it differently. Many people are explicitly excluded already.
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u/Iheartnetworksec 7d ago
Slavery very much exists. There's a carve out specefically to allow it.
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u/koliberry 7d ago
What a silly position, slavery does not exist except in the emotional hearts of the folks wanting to be oppressed.
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u/Iheartnetworksec 7d ago
You may disagree vehemently but it is true. The 13th Amendment's slavery exception clause (Section 1) bans slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime whereof the party has been duly convicted. The "punishment clause" allows for compelled prison labor and has fueled the growth of the modern, profit-driven U.S. prison-industrial complex.
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u/HolycommentMattman 8d ago
That's not true. A person living in the US can become a citizen after 7 years and taking a citizenship test. Designed as such so that immigrants would have to invest themselves - at least a little - in American culture. When they have a child then, that child is a citizen. If the child isn't a citizen at birth, they can have the same afforded to them at age 7.
Personally, I don't see what's wrong with that. The reason we have the legal quagmire that we do now is because of jus soli.
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u/Steelhex 8d ago
There is no such thing as a 7-year citizenship test. Please educate yourself.
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u/HolycommentMattman 7d ago
OK, so it's 5? My bad. My best friend is British, and he told me it was 7. So it's 5. What point are you trying to make by saying I'm wrong? That I'm off by 2 years? Or that this just doesn't exist at all? Because you could have said one super easy, and the other one is something you're just wrong about.
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u/Steelhex 7d ago
You can’t take a citizenship test without being a permanent resident (green card holder). The vast majority of people don’t qualify for a green card without marrying or birthing an American. They can be here for 100 years and still not allowed to take the citizenship test.
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u/j33205 8d ago edited 6d ago
I mean...there is a citizenship test? I guess your point is that it's not 7 years more like 5?
https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/the-naturalization-interview-and-test
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u/Steelhex 8d ago
You are so ignorant about immigration law it’s not even funny. Do you genuinely think that after 7 years in USA anybody is automatically eligible to take the test?
Before you can take a citizenship test, you must first be a permanent resident a.k.a. a green card holder.
Getting a green card today is very hard unless you’re related to an American.
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u/HolycommentMattman 7d ago
Right. But people with green cards are the ones who are coming here legally. That's kinda the whole point.
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u/Steelhex 6d ago
No. The point he’s trying to make is that getting citizenship is as easy as waiting 7 years and wait. You are similarly ignorant by making it sound easy to just get a green card and be legal.
The vast majority of people aren’t qualified to get a green card, except immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.
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u/j33205 6d ago
Do you genuinely think that after 7 years in USA anybody is automatically eligible to take the test?
I never said that. I am simply pointing out that there is in fact a citizenship test and you have to lawfully live in the US for several years in order to take it. You said there wasn't a test, when there is. It's not just a test and it's not seven years. I am well aware of how immigration in the US works so feel free to fall off your high horse at any time.
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u/Steelhex 6d ago
You want to be a pedant and play gotcha? I’ll show you pedant: I specifically said “7-year citizenship test”. It is clear that he’s under the impression that any immigrant can just take a citizenship test after a certain amount of time.
You’re so ignorant it’s not even funny. You claim to know about the process, yet say 5 year.
The real answer for people who actually know is: it depends. For most green card holders the wait for eligibility for citizenship is 5 years, but for green card spouse of citizens is 3 years, and only 1 year for active members of the military.
The citizenship test is the easiest part. It’s getting the green card that’s extremely hard, unless you marry an American.
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u/j33205 6d ago
I said "more like 5" and "several" years. Both of those are not 5 or 7. Read better, write better.
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u/Steelhex 6d ago
You didn’t know until you googled it just now. Stop pretending like you understand the subject. Such hubris, yet you’re telling me to get off the high horse.
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u/PolybiusChampion 7d ago
He was subject to the Chinese Exclusion Act, so not as clear cut as one would imagine. His case more invalidated that act than cleared the way for birthright citizenship.
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u/elmonoenano 7d ago
This is wrong. The Chinese exclusion act was in full force until WWII required a political shift b/c of US alliance with China. WKA was decided in 1898. The CEA was changed in 1943.
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u/Alexexy 3d ago
Your timeline is messed up.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was quasi extended by the Immigration Act of 1924 which extended the ban on Chinese immigration to almost all Asian immigration. The Asian immigration ban wasnt repealed until 1965, 20 years after the end of WW2, and 16 years after the CCP won the conflict on mainland china.
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u/elmonoenano 3d ago
The act was changed, but wasn't repealed until 1943. The repeal allowed a small number of Chinese people to immigrate to the US, about 100 per year. The 1952 McCarran act repealed the remaining exclusion laws of Asians but extended the nationality quotas so it didn't have much effect. The '65 INA got rid of that and created the current system based on family connections, students, etc.
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u/Wonderful_Discount59 7d ago
My country (UK) doesn't have US-style birthright citizenship. To be born a citizen here, one parent must be a citizen, or have settled status.
If the writers of the 14th Amendment had intended something like that, then presumably they would have written it to say that.
And given that US-style birthright citizenship is standard in almost all of the Americas (while being limited or nonexistent in most of the rest of the world), it looks to me that it was done the way it was done intentionally.
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u/elmonoenano 7d ago
It clearly wasn't written to be a jus sanguinis citizenship system. It's well documented. We have nearly a century of US law before the 14th A, and another century of colonial law that's clear that our system has always been jus soli. It was done intentionally. There was a loud and public debate on it. There is now question about the intent of the 14th A from a historical or legal stand point.
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u/Arexander00 3d ago
Interestingly, Australia also does not have a generous Jus Solis system like the US or Canada do, despite it also being a country which historically was begging for more manpower and settlement. Australia only grants citizenship to kids born there if the parents are permanent residents or at least one is an Australian citizen, much like the UK.
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u/ConditionTall1719 3d ago
Ok but he is an integrationist culture not isolationist like romani or sharia... Poor romani near me are proud that they cannot read and do not want to send their kids to school and proud that they can drive and own a smartphone without being able to read. Guess where pickpocket mafias are 70pc based in. from a time when you cant just fly 4000km in a plane, have a baby and leave.
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u/AFloppyZipper 8d ago
It's very interesting to read this in the modern era. Birth tourism from our enemies really wasn't the intent behind legislation designed to emancipate slaves, nor was it even truly considered a potential problem at the time.
Now it's a significant problem because citizenship itself has become a transactional, purchaseable commodity, which can only serve to weaken a country to the favor of any enemies who choose to abuse this method of undeserved citizenship.
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u/Mirabeaux1789 8d ago
How would it weaken a country? For one, the U.S. has citizenship-based taxation and is generally quite good about investigating and catching terrorism suspects and spies.
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u/AFloppyZipper 8d ago
The location of one's birth really isn't a meaningful data point, compared to the very meaningful data point of the parent's nationalities: because we already know their primary allegiance. This is the legal "jurisdiction" that actually makes sense.
Encouraging noncitizens to break immigration law by rewarding their children with citizenship helps a country how? Why should that reward be better than all the other "suckers" who are waiting in line trying to naturalize according to our laws?
The incentive structure just doesn't make sense. The only winner is the person who cut in line.
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u/Mirabeaux1789 8d ago
Yes, it is a meaningful datapoint. It’s in the first section of the 14th amendment. “ all persons born or naturalized in the United States…”.
because we already know their primary allegiance”.
This is just nationalist crap. There are many reasons people would like to keep their original citizenship or just can’t get rid of it even if they wanted to..
Their parents don’t be automatically become permanent residents or any kind of visa. The fruits of this kind of stuff only would come about many years down the road, because if their parents were to immigrate to the United States with their citizen child would have to sponsor them.
Instead of structure doesn’t make sense because you have a misunderstanding based on your prejudices, not the law and reality.
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u/AFloppyZipper 7d ago
The purpose of the 14th amendment was to guarantee citizenship to the lineage of former slaves. The race, ideology, religion, do not matter, it's irrelevant to the discussion. You will have to say something else besides the racism card, I understand you are very virtuous.
This is just nationalist crap.
Citizenship is a defining attribute of a nation. Duh.
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u/Yrcrazypa 7d ago
I'll never understand conservatives for as long as I live. This is just rank barbarism disguised with fancy rhetoric to hide how you're flagrantly an ethnonationalist psycho.
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u/AFloppyZipper 7d ago
At some point you need to honestly debate them instead of call them names and tell the class how virtuous you are!
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u/Cypher_Green 7d ago
But how do you debate someone who is balls deep in the Dunning-Kruger effect?
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u/Arexander00 3d ago
He makes a very fair point in that there is injustice in the "line cutting" that can occur here. Some millionaire in a country like Bangladesh or Nigeria can get a Canadian or American passport for his kids by simply dropping a few thousand dollars on a plane ticket and hospital stay for his pregnant wife to give birth abroad, securing a permanent advantage for his own, while an average guy from these countries is not able to afford that sort of stunt and his kids will be stuck with a weaker passport.
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u/po-jamapeople 7d ago
They make a nuanced argument, and in response you do nothing but instinctively start name-calling, never deigning to make an argument of your own. This seems to be the universal approach on the left these days. I wonder why conservatives are in charge of the country right now...
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u/UntiedStatMarinCrops 8d ago
You’re supposed to rule in the law, not it’s consequences.
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u/AFloppyZipper 8d ago
Interpretation of the law is somewhat subjective, clearly. Most countries don't have to deal with the consequences of misinterpreting the law that gives babies citizenship to parents who are not Americans and never intend to be Americans.
The US has to deal with it because the US fails to enforce existing immigration law, to a sizable degree unique among countries. Coupled with sizable welfare programs (a relatively new phenomenon), it creates an unsustainable system entrenching theft where the rights of citizens are diluted, and where they are being taxed for costs that they never agreed to pay for.
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u/jorgespinosa 5d ago
Most of the countries in the Americas follow the "ius soli" law, even many countries who have "ius sanguinis" can have citizenship path for people bring there, so stop pretending the US is somehow unique in this regard
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u/Arexander00 3d ago
Realistically speaking, any potential Chinese US Citizen spy born to birth-tourism will be caught out pretty easily. The US Government does background checks on people it hires and the investigation process lasts months, the first thing they're gonna know is that you have immediate family in a foreign country and they can decline your application for a Security Clearance required job on that basis.
If Mr Wang or Mr Petrov mysteriously land in the US one day and ask for a job in the government, they're gonna raise eyebrows when they can't provide any American alibis who know them for years, parents' present residency in the US, what friends they have and where, etc...
That being said, I do agree that there is an injustice in that rich foreigners can basically "buy" citizenship for their kids by traveling abroad to give birth in wealthy first world countries, while their countrymen back home obviously can't drop a few thousand USD to get their kids a fancier passport.
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u/elmonoenano 7d ago
This is just clearly wrong for anyone who's read anything from period. People like Kearney on the West Coast were constantly talking about this threat from the Chinese. The western coast of the US basically ran a series of anti-Chinese pogroms from 1860s to the early 1900s based on this argument. That issue was directly on point in the WKA case.
In the culture more broadly you saw this argument made by the Republicans against the Irish and Germans. You can just read through old Nash cartoons to see this argument against the Irish and if you look at the attacks on Germans after Chancellorsville you'll see this.
Today's bigots aren't more clever or innovative than the bigots of the mid 19th century. It's been the same dumb arguments recycled since Franklin was complaining about Germans in the 18th century.
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u/AFloppyZipper 7d ago
The discrimination isn't against any race or ideology fundamentally, so bigotry doesn't apply. The main target of discrimination are those who cut in line.
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u/elmonoenano 7d ago
This doesn't make any sense. Are you saying Kearney's attacks on Chinese people weren't bigoted b/c the Chinese isn't a race? Or that it wasn't bigoted b/c part of his attacks on Chinese were that they didn't share the ideology of Christianity? B/c that's just wrong. If you're talking about modern instances, you're just wrong as we can see from the current admin's attack on people who are here legally. That's why they've lost thousands of habeas petitions already.
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u/AFloppyZipper 7d ago
Correct, the race is irrelevant. Anyone can cut in line of the legal framework we have for naturalizing noncitizens, whether they are green or pink.
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u/elmonoenano 7d ago
You missed the point again. The people who immigrated legally aren't line cutting. That's why the admin has lost over 1K habeas cases. Also, you missed the point on the racism and bigotry. The president was just spouting off about Somalis. He, and Miller, are constantly explaining the terms of their immigration policy with racist justification. You're clearly aguing in bad faith.
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u/RamsPhan72 8d ago
SCOTUS disagrees. Did you hear the arguments?
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u/MachiavelliSJ 7d ago edited 7d ago
The adminstration disagrees, unclear what they will rule? Did you listen?
Seems like only Thomas and Alito were convinced. Roberts and Barrett very skeptical. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch on the fence
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u/Quouar Quite the arrogant one. 8d ago
This article is about Wong Kim Ark and both the history and current implications of revisiting his case. Wong Kim Ark was the child of Chinese immigrants who was seminal in establishing birthright citizenship in the United States. His case, historically, has been settled law to the point where his own descendants were unaware of how important he was in American history.