Ex parte Wong Foo

In this case the applicant, who claims to be the son of a native-born Chinese citizen of this country, was denied admission for the reason that the relationship was not established to the satisfaction of the commissioner. Upon appeal the excluding decision was affirmed. In the decision affirming the excluding order the Assistant Secretary bases his action upon a doubt as to the relationship, because of the age of applicant’s father at a certain time, as shown by the manifest of the ship upon which he arrived here in 1888. The language of .the Assistant Secretary is as follows:

[1-3] If the applicant is in reality the son of an American citizen, even though 'it be a citizen of Chinese descent, he also is such citizen, and entitled to enter this country as such. The inquiry of the immigration department should be directed, of course, in good faith to the ascertainment of that fact. The burden of proving such relationship is undoubtedly upon the applicant. But that burden should not be increased by throwing extraneous matters into the scales against him. If, indeed, the proof offered by him is to be weighed in the light of his “father’s sense of allegiance to this country,” then…