Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that a child born in the United States to naturalized parents on U.S. soil is a natural born citizen and that the child's natural born citizenship is not lost if the child is taken to and raised in the country of the parents' origin, provided that upon attaining the age of majority, the child elects to retain U.S. citizenship "and to return to the United States to assume its duties.

"[1] Marie Elizabeth Elg was born in the Brooklyn section of New York City in 1907 to two Swedish parents who had arrived in the United States some time prior to 1906; her father was naturalized in 1906.

Elg sued to establish that she was a citizen of the United States and not subject to deportation.

The case was argued for the United States by Robert H. Jackson, who later became a Supreme Court justice.

This was the only Supreme Court case that Jackson lost in his two years as Solicitor General.