United States v. Wong Kim Ark

Wong Kim Ark (defendant) was born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese parents who never obtained U.S. citizenship and returned to China in 1890; he remained in the United States and, though allowed reentry after a brief 1890 trip based on his native-born status, was denied reentry after a 1895 trip on the grounds that he was not a citizen, under the Chinese Exclusion Acts barring non-citizen Chinese nationals. He sued for entry, and the district court found he was a citizen and thus exempt from the Exclusion Acts; the government appealed.