Great-Grandson of 1898 Plaintiff Hails SCOTUS Ruling

The great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, the Chinese American at the center of the Supreme Court case that established the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, called Tuesday's ruling a victory for all Americans, saying it reaffirmed that precedent. "I don't consider this stuff a personal victory," Norman Wong tells the AP. "It's an obligation and a duty for every American to care about this because ultimately we're not fighting for the rights of Chinese or Japanese or whatever. We're fighting for rights for all Americans because these are fundamental rights."

• Wong, 76, has become an unexpected public face of the movement to protect birthright citizenship. He began giving speeches and interviews in January 2025—shortly after President Trump issued his executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

• In a 6-3 decision Tuesday, a divided Supreme Court upheld a broad interpretation of birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump's arguments. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court held that the long-settled understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, adopted after the Civil War, makes anyone born in the US a citizen, with very limited exceptions. Dissenting Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas would have upheld Trump's proposed restrictions.
• Wong calls the executive order Trump issued on the first day of his second term an unconstitutional "decree." "If it didn't fly in the face of the Constitution, the Supreme Court would have ruled differently today," Wong says. "That's unfortunate that we have a leader that wants the United States to be in his image, but that's not what we're supposed to be. He's supposed to conform to what we the people believe in."

• Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco in 1873, was returning by steamship from China in 1895 and was denied reentry. He sued and the Supreme Court in 1898 ruled in his favor. The court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment, a child's citizenship depends on birth in the US, not a parent's citizenship.
• Cecillia Wang, the national director of the American Civil Liberties Union who argued for birthright citizenship in front of the Supreme Court, said in a statement the court "reaffirms a fundamental American promise—if you are born here, you are a citizen."
• Wang is American-born with parents who legally came to the US from Taiwan as graduate students. The fact that she was the one who got to argue the case nearly 130 years after his great-grandfather won his case makes today's decision even better, Wong says. "It's kind of sweet because—especially for Chinese Americans—they were at the forefront of all this anti-Asian hate."
• In a Truth Social post, Trump said the decision was "too bad for our Country" and suggested, incorrectly, that Congress could "easily" address it with legislation. The majority decision rests on constitutional grounds. It would take an amendment to overcome the decision. In a post later Tuesday, Trump said, "I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!"