Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

Part 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.

They definitely did have an idea of people living here who were not citizens. Thus the Naturalization Act of 1790.

Or in 1882 when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com