Wong Kim Ark and Later Cases
In the years since Wong Kim Ark, the concept of jus soli citizenship has "never been seriously questioned by the Supreme Court, and been accepted as dogma by lower courts". Citizenship cases since Wong Kim Ark have dealt mainly with situations falling outside the bounds of the Citizenship Clause—such as citizenship via jus sanguinis for foreign-born children of U.S. citizens, or circumstances under which U.S. citizenship may be lost.
The Wong Kim Ark court's affirmation of jus soli as the primary rule determining United States citizenship has been cited in several Supreme Court decisions affirming the citizenship of U.S.-born individuals of Chinese or Japanese ancestry. The court's holding that the language of the Constitution should be understood in light of the common law has been cited in numerous Supreme Court decisions dealing with the interpretation of the Constitution or acts of Congress. The Wong Kim Ark court's understanding of Fourteenth Amendment jurisdiction was also cited in a 1982 case involving the rights of illegal immigrants.
An unsuccessful effort was made in 1942 by the Native Sons of the Golden West to convince the Supreme Court to revisit and overrule the Wong Kim Ark ruling, in a case (Regan v. King) challenging the citizenship status of roughly 2,600 U.S.-born persons of Japanese ancestry. The plaintiffs' attorney termed Wong Kim Ark "one of the most injurious and unfortunate decisions" ever handed down by the Supreme Court and hoped the new case would give the court "an opportunity to correct itself". A federal district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals summarily rejected this contention, each citing Wong Kim Ark as a controlling precedent, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Federal appellate courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to cite the Wong Kim Ark opinion's use of the phrase citizenship by birth within the territory in support of claims that persons born in the Philippines during the period of its history when it was a United States possession were born in the U.S. (and thus entitled to U.S. citizenship via the Citizenship Clause). One federal appellate decision has criticized the jus soli holding in Wong Kim Ark in connection with illegal immigration, but at the same time conceded that the courts were powerless to change this rule, urging Congress to do so instead.
Read more about this topic: United States V. Wong Kim Ark, Subsequent Developments
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