All articles tagged with #wong kim ark
The Supreme Court will hear Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship for children born to noncitizens or temporary residents, a move that tests the Citizenship Clause and federal immigration law; lower courts have signaled it is likely unconstitutional, and a decision is expected by late June or early July potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of births.
Trump’s administration argues, citing the 1884 Elk v. Wilkins ruling, that birthright citizenship is not automatic for everyone born in U.S. territory and seeks an executive order to limit it to children of U.S. citizens or permanent residents; the plan is paused by courts and faces challenges from the ACLU, with experts noting Elk’s narrow scope and Wong Kim Ark providing competing precedent.
Vox traces Trump’s birthright-citizenship challenge to a 19th‑century white supremacist argument popularized by lawyer Alexander Morse, who argued that citizenship should be denied to the children of foreigners transiently in the U.S. and, in practice, to Chinese Americans. Morse later abandoned the approach, and Wong Kim Ark settled the Citizenship Clause, but Trump’s brief echoes that old theory even as the constitutional text and Wong Kim Ark undermine it; the legal case against birthright citizenship remains strong.