Birthright citizenship, then and now

A newsletter by Reuters and Westlaw

By Caitlin Tremblay

Good morning. Today we have a story about the family at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court's first birthright citizenship ruling. Plus, the high court is expected to issue opinions; the U.S. customs agency is due to provide its latest report on the status of a system for refunding $166 billion in tariffs; and Taylor Swift was sued by a Las Vegas showgirl. NASA is set for its first crewed moon return in over half a century. Let's take one small step into Tuesday and a giant leap into the rest of the week. 🌕

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Norman Wong, the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, poses for a portrait in front of a mural of his late ancestor, in San Francisco, California. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

President Trump's challenge to the longstanding rule that anyone born in the United States, with only narrow exceptions, is automatically a citizen echoes a similar dispute that took place on the shores of San Francisco more than a century ago.

In the late 19th century, amid a wave of fervent anti-Chinese sentiment, the U.S. government sought to prevent a young man named Wong Kim Ark from re-entering the country upon returning by steamship from a trip to his parents' homeland of China, contending that, despite being born in the United States, he was not a citizen.

On March 28, 1898, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, recognizing that the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment grants citizenship by birth on U.S. soil, including to those like Wong whose parents were foreign nationals. Now ‌his great-grandson, a San Francisco area resident, worries that the principle enshrined by his ancestor's case may be in peril.

Andrew Chung has more from the family at the heart of the 1898 Supreme Court decision ahead of oral arguments on Wednesday where the court will hear a case that threatens to overturn that precedent.

Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.

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Additional writing by Namrata Arora.