Descendant of key figure in 1898 citizenship case hopes for the best from US Supreme Court
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Mr Norman Wong, the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, and his wife Maureen arriving at the US Supreme Court on April 1.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Norman Wong, great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, supports birthright citizenship during the Supreme Court case on Trump's executive order.
- Wong Kim Ark's 1898 Supreme Court case established birthright citizenship via the 14th Amendment, challenged by Trump's 2025 order.
- Norman Wong fears "fear of the president" could influence justices, urging them to uphold 128 years of precedent.
AI generated
WASHINGTON - While many Americans are following the US Supreme Court case involving President Donald Trump’s attempt to limit birthright citizenship, Mr Norman Wong is doing so with a little bit of extra motivation. For him, it is about family.
The San Francisco-area resident is the great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, the Chinese American man who was at the heart of a landmark 1898 Supreme Court decision concerning birthright citizenship.
That ruling recognised that the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment grants citizenship by birth on US soil, including to babies born to parents who are foreign nationals.
Mr Norman Wong, 76, travelled to Washington and was outside the courthouse as the justices heard arguments on April 1. He told Reuters afterwards that the justices should reaffirm the court’s 128-year-old precedent and rule against Mr Trump.
“I hope America gets this thing right,” the retired carpenter said.
When Wong Kim Ark, a cook who was in his 20s at the time, returned from a trip to his parents’ homeland of China in 1895, customs officials in San Francisco declared him a non-citizen and sought to prevent him from re-entering the United States.
Though he was born in the city’s Chinatown neighbourhood, the officials said that because his parents were Chinese nationals, so too was he, and as such he was ineligible for entry due to an 1882 law called the Chinese Exclusion Act that restricted Chinese migration and citizenship. The Supreme Court disagreed.
A poster showing a picture of Wong Kim Ark, at his great-grandson Mr Norman Wong’s home, in San Francisco, California, on March 28.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In the current case, Mr Norman Wong said, the court’s nine justices should “not reinvent our rights” and should uphold “the way birthright citizenship stood for 128 years of precedents.”
Speaking outside the Supreme Court building amid demonstrators defending birthright citizenship, he called the day of the arguments “a special day for me”.
“I see these people and I feel like I definitely don’t stand alone, that if I can help empower them, great. Because in the end, it’s going to take America as a whole to stand up and to make this country right, to keep this ship balanced.”
Mr Trump became the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court arguments, though he left midway through. At issue was the legality of Mr Trump’s executive order signed in 2025 that had instructed US agencies not to recognise the citizenship of children born in the US if neither parent is an American citizen or legal permanent resident, also called a “green card” holder.
“I think he was there to apply pressure to the judges for their decision,” Mr Norman Wong said.
“The decision should be a constitutional decision, not a decision based on fear - fear of retribution, fear of the president.”
The justices through their questions signalled scepticism towards Mr Trump’s directive.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on April 2, the Republican president wrote, “Kangaroo Court!!!” REUTERS
