Wong Kim Ark was about people lawfully in the country. They immigrated lawfully and had been granted permanent residency.
This current case is not about legal immigration. Wong Kim Ark’s family did not commit a crime to enter the United States. In the current case it is about a person entering the United States while committing a crime.
Precedents don’t really matter They only matter in trials and lower court rulings. For example locally in Jefferson County, if the police arrest a person and then take a sworn confession from him but the police did not advise the person of his constitutional rights under Miranda, it is an unlawfully obtained confession. Precedent tells the trial judge to disallow the statement and any evidence gathered from the unlawful statement.
The Supreme Court however doesn’t have to go by precedent and can overturn its own decisions.
An example is that Roe v Wade said that states could not stop abortions within certain limits but in Dobbs v Jackson WHO the precedent was overturned. Some people cried foul because Roe v. Wade had been precedent for 49 years. That can’t be!!
But let’s take a trip down memory lane. In 1896 the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson said that segregation was lawful as long as accommodations were equal. That gave us the phrase separate but equal. Colored water fountains, lunch counters, etc., were constitutional Then in 1954, almost 60 years later, the Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education said that segregation in schools was unconstitutional, effectively overturning Plessy v Ferguson.
Awesome! The Supreme Court overturned a bad ruling in Plessy. Precedents should not be locked into stone. Oh, guaranteed abortions were overturned? Supreme Court precedents should be locked in stone!
So apparently one side of the aisle thinks that precedents should stand!! Well, except the ones that we don’t like…..