| United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued January 11–12, 1923 Decided February 19, 1923 | |
| Full case name | United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind |
| Citations | 261 U.S. 204 (more) 43 S. Ct. 338; 67 L. Ed. 616; 1923 U.S. LEXIS 2544 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | In re Bhagat Singh Thind, 268 F. 683 (D. Or. 1920) |
| Holding | |
| People of Indian descent are not white, and hence are not eligible for naturalization. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinion | |
| Majority | Sutherland, joined by unanimous |
Superseded by | |
| Luce-Celler Act | |
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian Sikh man who identified himself as an Aryan, was ineligible for naturalized citizenship in the United States.[1] In 1919, Thind filed a petition for naturalization under the Naturalization Act of 1906 which allowed only "free white persons" and "aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" to become United States citizens by naturalization.
After his petition was granted, government attorneys initiated a proceeding to cancel Thind's naturalization and a trial followed in which the government presented evidence of Thind's political activities as a founding member of the Ghadar Party, an Indian independence movement headquartered in San Francisco.[2][3] Thind did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions. Instead, he attempted to be classified as a "free white person" within the meaning of the Naturalization Act based on the fact that Indians and Europeans share common descent from Proto-Indo-Europeans.
Thind was represented by a fellow Indian American, Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, a California attorney.
The Court unanimously rejected Thind's argument, adding that Thind did not meet a "common sense" definition of white, ruling that Thind could not become a naturalized citizen. The Court concluded that "the term 'Aryan' has to do with linguistic, and not at all with physical characteristics, and it would seem reasonably clear that mere resemblance in language, indicating a common linguistic root buried in remotely ancient soil, is altogether inadequate to prove common racial origin."[4]
- ^ United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923).
This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document.
- ^ Coulson, Doug (2015). "British Imperialism, the Indian Independence Movement, and the Racial Eligibility Provisions of the Naturalization Act: United States v. Thind Revisited". Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives. 7: 1–42. SSRN 2610266.
- ^ Ogden, Johanna. "Ghadar, historical silences, and notions of belonging: early 1900s Punjabis of the Columbia river". Gale Academic OneFile. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
- ^ Chi, S. & Robinson, E.M. (2012). Voices of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Experience (vol. 1). pp. 341. USA: Greenwood. ISBN 978-1-59884-354-5
