Changing Times
%20frontier.jpg)
After passage of the notorious Alien Sedition Acts of 1798 which expressly expired two years after enactment and the almost forgotten Naturalization Act of 1798, Congress did not pass any significant immigration related legislation until after the American Civil War.
Until about 1882, United States immigration policy was wide open as indicated in the following policy statement by John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State in 1819:
The American Republic invites nobody to come. We will keep out nobody. Arrivals will suffer no disadvantages as aliens. But they can expect no advantages either. Native-born and foreign-born face equal opportunities. What happens to them depends entirely on their individual ability and exertions, and on good fortune.
Excerpted from the "Jacksonian Democracy" lecture by Dr. Bradley J. Birzer, Hillsdale College (March 27, 2017).
Obviously times have changed. At least, the immigration law has changed.
The American frontier seems to have faded away. Two world wars have driven home the need for national security; and a new asymmetric threat of terrorism has appeared, following the break-up of the Soviet Union in the wake of the “cold war” in the late 20th century and beginning of the 21st century.
I am unaware of any extant developed nation that leaves its borders open.
If physically securing the United States borders is not possible or desirable, as some have argued, the United States will unavoidably be exposed to the very real hazards of a dangerous world and ultimately cease to exist as a nation.The term, “nation without borders,” is an oxymoron.