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
Full Episode
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.
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.
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.
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