Great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark praises Supreme Court ruling affirming birthright citizenship

By — Terry Tang, Associated Press Terry Tang, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/great-grandson-of-wong-kim-ark-praises-supreme-court-ruling-affirming-birthright-citizenship Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark praises Supreme Court ruling affirming birthright citizenship Politics Jul 1, 2026 5:33 PM EDT The great-grandson of Wong Kim Ark, the Chinese American at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court case that established the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, called Tuesday's ruling a victory for all Americans, saying it reaffirmed that precedent. "I don't consider this stuff a personal victory," Norman Wong told The Associated Press. "It's an obligation and a duty for every American to care about this because ultimately we're not fighting for the rights of Chinese or Japanese or whatever. We're fighting for rights for all Americans because these are fundamental rights." WATCH: How the birthright citizenship decision impacts Trump's immigration agenda Wong, 76, has become an unexpected public face of the movement to protect birthright citizenship. He began giving speeches and interviews in January 2025 — shortly after President Donald Trump issued his executive order declaring children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. In a 6-3 decision, a divided Supreme Court upheld a broad interpretation of birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump's arguments. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court held that the long-settled understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, adopted after the Civil War, makes anyone born in the U.S. a citizen, with very limited exceptions. Dissenting Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas would have upheld Trump's proposed restrictions. The Fourteenth Amendment "was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support," Thomas wrote. Trump said the decision was "too bad for our Country" and wrongly suggested that Congress could "easily" address it with legislation. The majority decision rests on constitutional grounds. It would take an amendment to overcome the decision. Wong called the executive order Trump issued on the first day of his second term an unconstitutional "decree." "If it didn't fly in the face of the Constitution, the Supreme Court would have ruled differently today," Wong said. "That's unfortunate that we have a leader that wants the United States to be in his image, but that's not what we're supposed to be. He's supposed to conform to what we the people believe in." Maintaining birthright citizenship as a right and a family leg