With legal support from the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Ark sued the U.S. government. A District court issued a writ of Habeas corpus on Ark's behalf. Government lawyers challenged the writ. The issue was whether his birth in San Francisco made him a citizen of the United States. The argument against Ark was his parents were subjects of China which made Ark a subject of China as well. Therefore, he was not, in the words of the Fourteenth Amendment, "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and was therefore not a U.S. citizen. Both China and Japan held that children born to their citizens, wherever they were born, was based on their bloodline. Chinese law stated children born to Chinese nationals were citizens of China, as long as their birth is properly registered in China. The U.S. is mainly a country of citizenship by soil, also called "Jus soli". This means they are citizens, by 'right of the soil', based on the state, territory or country in which they were born. 