<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Laws applied </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> U.S. Const . amend . XIV </Td> </Tr> <P> United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled 6--2 that a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese nationality who at the time had a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and were carrying on business there but not as employees of the Chinese government, automatically became a U.S. citizen . This decision established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution . </P> <P> Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco in 1873, to Chinese parents who were legally domiciled and resident there at the time and not employed by the Chinese government, had been denied re-entry to the United States after a trip abroad, under a law restricting Chinese immigration and prohibiting immigrants from China from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens . He challenged the government's refusal to recognize his citizenship, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, holding that the citizenship language in the Fourteenth Amendment encompassed the circumstances of his birth . </P>

United states v wong kim ark is an important case because it declared that