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Nationality Act of 1790
First law to define eligibility for citizenship by naturalization and established both standards and procedures that immigrants had to adhere to in order to become US citizens. There was a limit to this instituted by Congress to “free white persons.” -
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Week 4 Skills Activity: Evolution of the national citizenry
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Dred Scott v. Sanford
Supreme Court ruling established that both slaves and free African Americans were not considered citizens of the U.S. and were not entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship. -
14th Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed birthright citizenship for all persons born in the United States. -
Naturalization Act
This act extended naturalization rights to “aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent,” and denied access to other nonwhite immigrant groups -
Elk v. Wilkins
The Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not apply to Native Americans and stated that they did not automatically gain citizenship by birth and could be denied the right to vote -
Immigration Act
This 1891 immigration law clarified the immigration enforcement authority of the federal government -
United States v. Wong Kim Ark
This Supreme Court case established that any person born in the United States is a citizen by birth regardless of race or parents' status -
Expatriation Act
This act stripped citizenship from women born in the US when they married noncitizen immigrant men. -
Jones-Shafroth Act
Enacted U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans after the United States acquired the island as an incorporated territory in 1898 -
Cable Act
This Act went into law to restore citizenship to women born in the US who had married noncitizen husbands and thereby lost their citizenship under the Expatriation Act of 1907 -
Indian Citizenship Act
Native Americans born in the United States were automatically citizens by birth.