Chapter 14—Citizenship and Equal Justice

  1. A Nation of Immigrants
  2. Immigration Policy
  3. 1882-1924
  4. 1882—Congress barred the immigration of people such as the mentally disabled, convicts, & the penniless.
  5. 1882—Chinese Exclusion Act—restricted the admission of Chinese laborers for 10 years & prevented all foreign-born Chinese from becoming citizens.
  6. The number of restrictions grew but so did the number of immigrants.
  7. 25 million immigrants entered the U.S. with most of them coming from Southern & Eastern Europe.
  1. 1924-1965
  2. 1924—Johnson Act—Lowered the number of immigrants allowed into the country to less than 165,000 / year. Immigration from each country was limited to 2% of the 1890 census.

b. Immigration Reform Act of 1965

  1. Eliminated the quota system based on national origin
  2. It set up the following classes of citizens:
  1. those who could come from Europe, Asia, & Africa.
  2. Those who could come from Canada, Mexico, & the nations of Central & South America
  3. 120,000 immigrants/ year from the western hemisphere
  4. 170,000 immigrants/ year from the Eastern Hemisphere
  5. The law also set up preference categories of immigrants, such as immigrants with skills
  1. Immigration Reform & Control Act of 1986:
  2. Illegal aliens who have resided in the United States since 1982 can apply for amnesty. Then they can eventually become permanent residents.
  3. Aliens may apply for United states citizenship after 5 years of permanent American residence
  4. Employers are forbidden to hire illegal aliens
  5. Employers must ask applicants for documents such as passports or birth certificates to prove they are either citizens or otherwise qualified to work in the United states
  1. Later Immigration Acts
  2. Immigration Act of 1990reintroduced the countries of origin system
  3. Only up to 7% of all visas could go to one country.
  4. It permitted about 675,000 immigrants/ year and encouraged immigration of workers with special skills
  5. Law established a category for special immigrants who fall into 3 groups:
  1. displaced by war
  2. close relatives of United States citizens
  3. those admitted through private laws passed by Congress (one that applies to a particular person)
  1. Immigration legislation of 1996 addressed illegal immigration by:
  2. enlarging the border patrol
  3. establishing stiffer penalties for people who created false citizen papers or smuggled illegal workers.
  1. Current Political Debate
  2. Debate over illegal immigration from across the Southwestern border of the United states has intensified,
  3. Employers in agriculture & construction do not want to lose the flow of low-cost labor.
  4. 2. Other Americans want to limit undocumented workers because they believe these workers will lower their wages.
  1. Aliens—a person who lives in a country where he/she is not a citizen.
  2. Immigrant—is a person who comes to a country intending to live there permanently.

2. United States law pits aliens in the following categories:

  1. Resident alien—is a person from a foreign country who has established permanent residence in the United States.
  2. Immigrants are resident aliens until they become American citizens.
  1. Nonresident alien—is a person from another country who expects to stay in the United States for a short, specified time.
  2. Ex: Nigerian reporter who comes to the U.S. to write about a presidential election.
  1. Enemy alien—is a citizen with which the United States is at war.
  2. Refugees are people fleeing to escape persecution or danger in their own countries.
  3. Illegal alien—is a person who comes to the United States without a legal permit, such as a passport, visa, or entry permit.

***The Bill of Rights protects aliens as well as citizens***

Aliens are expected to pay taxes, obey the law, &be loyal to the government. They cannot vote & usually do not have to serve in the military or on juries. Unlike citizens, aliens cannot travel freely in the United States. They must notify the Immigration & Naturalization Service when they change residences.

  1. The Basis of Citizenship
  2. Who Determines Citizenship
  3. Founding Fathers left it up to the states on who a citizen would be.
  4. Exceptions were African Americans & immigrants who became citizens through naturalization—legal process by which a person is granted the rights & privileges of a citizen.

b. Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

  1. Supreme Court decided that African Americans could not be citizens.

c. 14th Amendment (1868)—Overturned the Dred Scott Case

  1. guaranteed that people of all races born in the United States & subject to its government are citizens.
  2. State citizenship became an automatic result of national citizenship
  1. Gaining Citizenship
  2. The Two Sources of citizenship by birth are:
  3. Jus Soli (Law of the Soil)
  4. Grants citizenship to nearly all people born in the United States
  1. Exception: A foreign diplomat’s child born in the U.S. is not an American citizen.

b. Jus Sanguinis—(Law of Blood)

  1. Grants citizenship to people born of American Parents.
  1. The rules of jus sanguinis makes these exceptions:
  2. If an individual is born in a foreign country & both parents are U.S. citizens, the child is a citizen provided one of the parents has been a legal resident of the United States or its possessions at some time.
  3. If only one of the parents is a U.S. citizen, that parent must have lived in the U.S. or one of its possessions for at least 5 years, 2 of which had to occur after age 14.

All immigrants who wish to become U.S. citizens must go through naturalization.

Immigrants need the following qualifications to apply:

  1. Applicants must have entered the United States legally.
  2. They must be of good moral character.
  3. They must declare their support of the principles of American government.
  4. They must prove they can read , write, & speak English. However, applicants over 50 who have lived in the United States more than 20 years do not have to meet the English –language requirement.
  5. They must show some basic knowledge of American history & government.

The Naturalization Process requires the following steps:

  1. An applicant must file a petition requesting citizenship.
  2. Must be 18 years old
  3. Who has lived as a legal resident alien in the U.S. for 30 months out of the previous 5 years
  4. In the state from which the petition is filed for at least 3 months
  5. The Immigration & Naturalization Service conducts an investigation & holds a preliminary hearing
  6. The hearing is a test of the applicant’s qualifications.
  1. An Applicant who makes it through the first hearing must attend a final hearing.
  2. Judge administers the United States oath of allegiance.
  3. Judge issues a certificate of naturalization that declares the person a citizen of the United States

Collective Naturalization—a group of people living in the same area become American citizens through an act of Congress.

  1. This is a less common process but available.
  2. Ex: Congress granted citizenship to all people living in Hawaii in 1900

***Only the Federal Government Can Both grant citizenship & take it away***

3 Ways to Lose Citizenship are:

  1. Expatriation—Voluntary or involuntary giving up one’s native country to live in a foreign country.
  2. Punishment for a crime
  3. A person loses citizenship when convicted of certain federal crimes, such as Treason.
  4. Denaturalization—Loss of citizenship through fraud or deception during the naturalization process
  5. Ex: If an individual joins a Communist or Totalitarian organization less than 5 years after becoming a citizen.
  1. Citizen Responsibilities
  2. Learning about rights & laws at school or from legal aid societies, consumer protection groups, or other organizations.
  1. participating in political life by campaigning for a candidate, distributing leaflets for a political party, or working at the polls on election day
  1. Voting helps Americans to share responsibility for how their society is governed
  1. Equal Protection of the Law
  2. What is Equal Protection?
  3. It forbids state & local governments from drawing unreasonable distinctions among different groups of people.
  1. The rational basis test provides that the Supreme Court will uphold a state law when the state can show a good reason for the classification applied in the law. The Court usually puts the burden of proving that a law is unreasonable on the people challenging the law. However, a special case arises when the state law involves one of the following:
  1. Suspect Classification—is made on the basis of race or national origin.
  2. Ex: A law that requires African Americans but not whites to ride in the back of the bus. The state must show the Court that there is some important public interest to justify the law & its classifications.
  3. Fundamental Rights.—
  4. The Court looks at state laws dealing with fundamental rights closely.
  5. Ex; a state law that limits the right to travel freely between states would be ruled unconstitutional because freedom to move among states is fundamental.
  1. Proving intent to Discriminate
  2. Discrimination—exists when individuals are treated unfairly solely because of their race, ethnic group, age, physical disability or religion
  3. Washington v Davis (1976)—Supreme Court ruled that to prove a state guilty of discrimination, one must prove that the state intended to discriminate.
  1. The Equal Rights Struggle
  2. Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
  3. the Court declared that children should be bused to schools outside their neighborhoods to combat these housing patterns& ensure integrated schools.

IV.Civil Liberties Challenges

  1. Affirmative Action
  2. Affirmative Action—refers to policies that directly or indirectly award jobs, government contracts, promotions, admissions to schools & training programs, and other benefits to minorities, women, or the physically challenged in order to make up for past discrimination.
  3. Most affirmative action programs are required by federal government regulations & court decisions
  4. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
  5. Supreme Court explained that racial quotas were not permissible under the equal protection clause, but that the diversity rationale was a legitimate interest that would allow a state medical school to consider an applicant’s race in evaluating his/her application for admission.
  1. Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)
  2. Upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s use of racial preferences in its admission policy. The Court ruled that the procedure’s narrow focus did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment

B.Discrimination Against Women

  1. Reed v. Reed (1971)
  2. was the 1st Supreme Court case to hold that discrimination on the basis of sex violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment
  3. All of the following standards result from Court Decisions that bar distinctions based on Gender:
  4. States cannot set different ages at which men & women become legal adults.
  5. States cannot set different ages at which men and women become legal adults.
  6. States cannot exclude women from juries.
  7. Employers cannot require women to take a pregnancy leave from work.
  8. Girls cannot be kept off Little League baseball teams
  9. Private clubs & community service groups cannot exclude women from membership
  10. Employers must pay equal retirement benefits to men & women.
  11. States cannot bar women from state supported military colleges

3.The following standards are based on Court decisions that allow differences based on gender:

  1. All boy & All girl public schools are allowed to exist as long as the enrollment is voluntary & quality is equal.
  2. A state can give widows a property tax exemption not given to widowers.
  3. A state may prohibit women from working in all male prisons.
  4. Hospitals may bar fathers from the delivery room

4. Congress has passed the following laws to protect women from discrimination.

  1. Civil Rights act of 1964—banned job discrimination based on gender
  2. Congress required all schools to give boys & girls equal chance to participate in sports programs (Title IX)
  1. Citizens’ Right to Know
  2. Freedom of Information Act (1966)—requires federal agencies to show citizens public records on requests.
  3. Exceptions: national defense materials, confidential personnel & financial data, & law enforcement files
  1. Sunshine Act of 1976—required that government meetings & hearings be open to the public
  2. be announced one week in advance
  1. Citizens’ Right To Privacy
  2. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
  3. Court ruled that personal privacy is one of the rights protected by amendments to the Constitution

2. Roe v. Wade (1973)