Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, California in 1873 to parents who were Chinese immigrants and who remained the subjects of the Emperor of China. Ark had lived in California ever since he was born. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This act denied citizenship to any Chinese immigrants and did not allow any new immigrants into the United States from China until 1892. Ark's parents returned to China in 1890. He visited them there but returned to San Francisco and was recognized as a native-born American citizen when he re-entered the country. In 1894, when he was 21 years old, Ark went to visit his parents in China again. But when he returned in 1895 the U.S. Customs denied his entry, claiming he was not a U.S. citizen. Ark was returned to the ship he came on, then to another ship the "Gaelic". He was sent to Peking, China where he waited for a chance to return to the United States where he lived.