United States v.  Bhagat Singh Thind

The United States vs Bhagat Singh Thind case revolved around the question of whether Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian immigrant, could be considered a "white person" and therefore eligible for naturalization as a U.S. citizen.

Bhagat Singh Thind was born in the Punjab region of India in 1892 and immigrated to the United States in 1913. He enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I and was honorably discharged in 1918. Thind then applied for U.S. citizenship in 1920, which was granted by the local naturalization authorities in the state of Washington. However, the U.S. government appealed the decision.

The central issue in the case was the interpretation of the term "white person" in the context of the naturalization laws at the time. The Naturalization Act of 1906 allowed "free white persons" and "persons of African nativity or persons of African descent" to be naturalized. Thind argued that, as an Indian, he belonged to the Aryan race, which he claimed was akin to the Caucasian or white race, and therefore he should be considered eligible for naturalization.

The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments in 1923. The Court ruled against him. Its decision was based on the interpretation that the term "white person" was intended to exclude individuals of non-European descent. The court held that although Thind may have had some Caucasian ancestry, he did not meet the common understanding of a white person in the United States.

Ironically, this Supreme Court decision contradicted the logic behind its previous ruling in Ozawa v. U.S. case in which the Court denied the Japanese man (who was apparently very pale) the citizenship because “whiteness” meant Caucasian ancestry not the actual skin tone.

The Thind case had significant implications beyond Thind's personal situation. It set a precedent for interpreting the racial eligibility for naturalization, establishing that individuals of Indian and other South Asian descent were not considered "white" under U.S. law. This decision, along with subsequent immigration laws, had a profound impact on the rights and opportunities available to Indian immigrants and their descendants in the United States. It wasn’t until the passage of the Luce-Celler Act in 1946 that Indians were finally allowed to apply for naturalized citizenship.