## Facts

- Bhagat Singh Thind, a high-caste Hindu born in Amritsar, Punjab, India, obtained a certificate of U.S. citizenship from a federal district court in Oregon.
- The naturalization grant was made over the objection of a federal Naturalization Examiner.
- The United States filed an equity action to cancel Thind’s certificate, arguing he was not a “free white person” eligible for naturalization under Rev. Stat. § 2169.
- The district court dismissed the government’s cancellation suit on motion.
- The Ninth Circuit certified questions to the Supreme Court concerning (1) whether Thind qualified as a “white person” under § 2169 and (2) whether the Immigration Act of 1917 otherwise disqualified him from naturalization.
- The Supreme Court accepted the certified questions and decided the case in a unanimous opinion by Justice Sutherland.

## Issues

1. Whether a high-caste Hindu of full Indian ancestry is a “free white person” within the meaning of Rev. Stat. § 2169 and therefore eligible for naturalization.
2. Whether the Immigration Act of 1917 barred naturalization of such a person who had lawfully entered the United States before that Act.

## Decision

- The Court answered the first certified question “no,” holding Thind was not a “white person” under Rev. Stat. § 2169.
- Because Thind was statutorily ineligible for naturalization, the government could seek cancellation of his naturalization certificate.
- The Court did not treat the 1917 Act question as independently controlling after resolving eligibility under § 2169.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory terms describing racial eligibility for naturalization are “words of common speech” interpreted according to the ordinary understanding of the public, not technical racial anthropology.
- “Caucasian” or “Aryan” classifications used by ethnologists do not determine the legal meaning of “white person” in the naturalization statute.
- The racial prerequisite in § 2169 was read as continuing the meaning of the “free white person” requirement first used in early naturalization legislation.
- Contemporary immigration exclusions, including congressional treatment of Asian migration, may be used as confirmatory evidence of congressional intent regarding eligibility for naturalization.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court held that Thind, though argued to be “Caucasian” in anthropological terms, was not a “free white person” under Rev. Stat. § 2169 as commonly understood, rendering him ineligible for naturalization and supporting cancellation of his citizenship certificate.


United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923)