Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 19, 2012



United States v. Wong Kim Ark is an 1898 United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that virtually everyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen. This decision established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents around 1871, had been denied re-entry to the U.S. after a trip abroad, under a law restricting Chinese immigration. He challenged the government's refusal to recognize his citizenship, and the Supreme Court ruled that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment encompassed essentially everyone born in the U.S.—even children of foreigners. Attempts have been made in Congress to restrict birthright citizenship, either through statutory redefinition of the term jurisdiction or by overriding both the Wong Kim Ark ruling and the Citizenship Clause itself through an amendment to the Constitution, but no such proposal has been enacted. (more...)

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