When have the merits actually been heard in a higher court? Cite the case in which it was submitted that Wong Kim Ark doesn't apply to Obama because his father was never permanently domiciled in the U.S.
That was a trick question, right? I’m sure that you know that “merits” aren’t heard in (higher) Appellate Courts. They are only heard in original jurisdiction (lower) courts. Appellate courts rule on errors of law or constitutional interpretation and they don’t hold trials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_court
So if any plaintiff challenged Obama’s attorneys’ use of Wong Kim Ark on the grounds that Barack Obama Senior was not permanently domiciled, that would be heard on appeal to higher state or federal courts.
However the ruling in US v. Wong Kim Ark says: “[an alien parent’s] allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and TEMPORARY, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s case, 7Coke 6a, strong enough to make a natural subject, for, he hath issue here, that issue is a natural born subject.”
The majority decision went on to state that: “’Subject’ and ‘citizen’ are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives; and though the term ‘citizen’ seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, ‘subjects,’ for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and the law of the land.”