Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

Not long ago, in the run-up to the midterm elections, President Trump vowed to sign an executive order ending the constitutional right of U.S. citizenship for children born in the United

States to non-citizens. Trump's idea earned a rare Washington response, anger from both Republicans

and Democrats. And scholars say such a change would require amending the Constitution.

Over the years, lawmakers have tried to go down a similar path as Trump, denying citizenship to people born in the U.S.

And they have failed every time.

Take 1895, for example, and a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, US v. Wang Kim Ark.

Wong was born in the United States in 1873 to two Chinese immigrants, but these were not good

times to be Chinese or Chinese American

in the United States. After the Depression of 1873, white working men began looking for scapegoats

for their economic woes, igniting a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment. Mob violence and racism erupted in California, where Chinese immigrants were once welcomed.

Then, Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was designed to end Chinese immigration to the United States.

But stopping Chinese immigration wasn't enough. The government also wanted to target children

who had been born in the United States to Chinese parents, even though the 14th Amendment clearly states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States

and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state

wherein they reside.

So lawmakers needed to undermine the 14th Amendment.

One way for them to do that was to build a legal argument around it.

Enter Wong.

When Wong was young, his father's business was on the verge of collapse thanks to the declining population of Chinese immigrants. The whole family moved back to China as a result. His parents

would remain there, but with limited opportunities in China, Wang returned to the United

States in 1890, beginning his cooking career.

...