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The United States before 1924 for one. Passports and travel documents didn't really exist at all until Napoleonic-ish times and weren't widespread until about W
by CamTin 6y ago
The United States before 1924 for one. Passports and travel documents didn't really exist at all until Napoleonic-ish times and weren't widespread until about WWI.
I personally feel that defining "citizen" in any other way than "people who are currently living here" is a form of apartheid and antithetical to our constitution.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoPart of why immigration law is so confusing and contradictory is that the framers of the Constitution had no concept of someone living in a country (with intent to stay) and not being a citizen. Even slaves and women were considered citizens.
- wang_li 6y agoThey definitely did have an idea of people living here who were not citizens. Thus the Naturalization Act of 1790.
- wang_li 6y agoOr in 1882 when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.