The Craziest Thing You’ll Read Today
Notwithstanding “[t]he myth of an era of unrestricted immigration” in the first 100 years of the Republic, the States enacted numerous laws restricting the immigration of certain classes of aliens, including convicted criminals, indigents, persons with contagious diseases, and (in Southern States) freed blacks. Neuman, The Lost Century of American Immigration (1776–1875), 93 Colum. L. Rev. 1833, 1835, 1841–1880 (1993). State laws not only pro vided for the removal of unwanted immigrants but also imposed penalties on unlawfully present aliens and those who aided their immigration.
This is, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. What’s crazy is that Justice Scalia brought it up as a defense of Arizona’s SB 1070.
