On the first day of his second term as President, Donald Trump signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. whose parents are in the country illegally. The Trump Administration asserts that the children of noncitizens are not "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" and therefore are not entitled to citizenship. But birthright citizenship is a Constitutional guarantee, explicitly laid out in the 14th Amendment. On this episode of The Sunday Story, we look at the origins of this right through a 1898 court case that would transform the life of one Chinese American and generations to follow. You can listen to the full episode from NPR's Throughline here or wherever you listen to podcasts.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What sparked the debate on birthright citizenship?
I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. So a fundamental question is being asked right now. Who gets to be a U.S. citizen? On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. whose parents are in the country illegally.
Trump's action, although dramatic, wasn't exactly a surprise. He'd been talking about doing exactly this over and over.
We are fighting hard to get birthright citizenship or automatic citizenship for the children of illegal aliens.
This is Trump at a GOP event at his Doral Golf Resort in Miami on January 27th of this year.
It was not meant for everyone to come into our country by airplane or charging across the borders from all over the world and think they're going to become citizens.
After Trump issued his order, 22 states quickly filed lawsuits. And then federal courts temporarily blocked the order, which means that now the issue will move slowly through the legal system. At the heart of this fight is a question that's centuries old. Who is truly American and who gets to decide?
Recently, my colleagues at NPR's History podcast, Throughline, revisited the story behind the 14th Amendment and how it came to be. The story focuses on one man, Wong Kim Ark. He was born in 1873 in San Francisco to Chinese parents at a time that the U.S. was turning against Chinese immigrants.
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Chapter 2: Who is Wong Kim Ark and why is he important?
In part one of their episode, ThruLine lays out how in the 1800s, thousands of Chinese laborers immigrated to the U.S. to work in factories and build America's railroads. But when an economic downturn hit, politicians turned against the Chinese, claiming they were taking low-wage jobs because they were willing to work under slave-like conditions. There were mob attacks and mass lynchings.
Chapter 3: What was the significance of the Chinese Exclusion Act?
And in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. That prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country. Under these conditions, Wong Kim Ark and his parents went back to China. But a few years later, he returned to the U.S. to work. He'd make occasional visits back to China to see his family. In 1895, he returned back to San Francisco after one of those visits.
But officials refused to let him leave the steamship. The U.S. government was looking for a test case to expand the Chinese Exclusion Act. And he was it. After the break, ThruLine's run to Abdel Fattah and Ramteen Arablui and part two of their story, the test case.
On ThruLine from NPR.
The consequences for the country would have been enormous.
It would have been a crisis. The man who saw a dangerous omission in the U.S. Constitution and took it upon himself to fix it. Find NPR's ThruLine wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. I just talked to comic Bill Burr. He's known for his anger-fueled humor, which he connects to his upbringing. Let's talk a little bit about your childhood.
Oh, Jesus. People are driving to work here. You know, let's try to give them something uplifting.
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Chapter 4: How did Wong Kim Ark's case progress through the courts?
We're looking back at the story of Wong Kim Ark, a man whose legal battle shaped who gets to be an American citizen. In August of 1895, Wong Kim Ark was sitting on a steamship, detained and watched over by guards. He was there because, according to the government, he was not a U.S. citizen, even though he had documentation showing he was born in San Francisco.
It must have been a lonely, bitter feeling to be just a few miles from his hometown, rejected by his own government. But he wasn't alone. Almost immediately, a group of people started working to get him out.
So I'm guessing they had lots of contacts and networks who were aware of who was coming in and what was happening on those steamships.
This is Amanda Frost, professor of immigration law and author of You Are Not American, Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers.
The group was known colloquially as the Chinese Six Companies.
The Chinese Six Companies, also known as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association.
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Chapter 5: What was the legal argument in Wong Kim Ark's case?
It was a group of representatives from all the different regions of China who were immigrants to the U.S., living in the U.S., who had made it in the United States. They had some money, they had some resources. And when the Chinese Exclusion Act went into effect, they mobilized, and they said, we are going to fight back.
They frequently hired lawyers, white lawyers, to help Chinese laborers who were subject to deportation under the law.
And so the Chinese six companies hired a lawyer for Wong Kim Ark, a well-known lawyer named Thomas Riordan, and he files a habeas petition on Wong Kim Ark's behalf.
A petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed on behalf of Wong Kim Ark, alleging that said Wong Kim Ark is unlawfully confined and restrained of his liberty on board of the steamship Coptic and prevented from landing into the United States.
So while Wong Kim Ark sat imprisoned on the steamship, his case headed to a California district court.
The question to be determined is whether a person born within the United States, whose father and mother were both persons of Chinese descent and subjects of the Emperor of China, but at the time of the birth were both domiciled residents of the United States, is a citizen.
the district court was faced with a monumental decision, one that hinged on a single sentence in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
14th Amendment, Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States...
The 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution after the Civil War to achieve, quote, equal protection of the laws. It was intended to make sure newly emancipated Black Americans had full, equal citizenship and rights. Some of the most impactful Supreme Court cases have hinged on this amendment. There's Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the constitutionality of segregation.
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Chapter 6: How did big businesses influence Wong Kim Ark's case?
So although there had been previously rulings that had touched on this issue, this one did immediately garner quite a lot of attention, even before the ruling came down.
The decision of several hundred other cases depends upon its outcome.
Finally, in the fall of 1895, the court came to a decision. He wins. He wins.
From the law as announced and the facts as stipulated, I am of the opinion that Wong Kim Ark is a citizen of the United States within the meaning of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. He has not forfeited his right to return to this country. His detention, therefore, is illegal. He should be discharged, and it is so ordered.
The experiment of blending the social habits and mutual race idiosyncrasies of the Chinese laboring classes with those of the great body of the people of the United States has been proved by the experience of 20 years to be in every sense unwise, impolitic, and injurious to both nations.
Wong Kim Ark was technically free, but his victory was short-lived.
So the government doesn't give up, but the government immediately says, we're appealing this. And in fact, Wong Kim Ark is only allowed off that steamship because he posted a $250 bail. And those records are lost to history, but I'm guessing that the Chinese six companies produced that $250. He was kept for four and a half months, and he was only released on January 3rd, 1896.
the government appealed the case up to the Supreme Court. They did this because they wanted to enforce and expand the Chinese Exclusion Act. Even the president at the time, Grover Cleveland, was in full support of excluding Chinese immigrants.
This has induced me to omit no effort to answer the earnest and popular demand for the absolute exclusion of Chinese laborers having objects and purposes unlike our own.
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