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The United States Constitution is drafted, with citizenship defined implicitly. Citizenship is first limited to "free persons" and does not have a formal definition.
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The first naturalization statute is passed, which limits citizenship to "free white persons" who have lived in the United States for at least two years.
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The Supreme Court judgment denies citizenship to African Americans, both free and enslaved, claiming that they are not regarded citizens under the Constitution.
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The 14th Amendment is ratified, granting citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" and guaranteeing equal legal rights
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The 15th Amendment is ratified, providing citizens the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of slavery.
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The Chinese Exclusion Act is passed, which prevents Chinese laborers from becoming naturalized citizens.
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The 19th Amendment is ratified, granting women the right to vote.
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The Indian Citizenship Act gives citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States.
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The McCarran-Walter Act eliminates racial and ethnic obstacles to immigration and naturalization while retaining nationality-based quotas.
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The reforms remove national origin quotas, resulting in increasing immigration from non-European nations.
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The Supreme Court overturns statutes that prohibited interracial marriage, recognizing the right to marry regardless of color.
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The 26th Amendment is ratified, which reduces the voting age from 21 to 18.
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The act grants amnesty to certain undocumented immigrants and imposes sanctions on employers hiring undocumented workers.
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Automatic citizenship is granted to foreign-born children adopted by U.S. citizens.
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The Supreme Court has upheld the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary protection to illegal persons brought to the United States as minors.
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This bill creates a road to citizenship for certain unauthorized individuals. In addition, the measure amends immigration statutes to replace the term alien with noncitizen and handles other connected issues.
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This proposal, introduced in Congress by President Joe Biden in 2021, restores humanity and American ideals to our immigration system. The Act allows industrious people who contribute to our communities on a daily basis and have lived here for years, if not decades, to become citizens.