User:MorpheusKafka/US Immigration Law/Introduction

What is immigration law?
Although the word immigration itself refers to the movement of people into another country to live their permanently, the concept of immigration law is much broader. In the United States, immigration law concerns not only the regulation of who may take up permanent residence, but also questions such as the following:


 * what procedures must be followed for non-nationals to enter the country? how long may they stay?
 * who is allowed to work or study in the United States?
 * under what circumstances can the U.S. government force someone to depart from the country?
 * how can someone become a U.S. citizen, whether at birth or later in life?


 * what are the consequences of committing certain immigration violations?
 * what are green cards, visas, and other forms are immigration documentation?
 * how can an employer hire workers from another country, and what are their obligations under immigration law?

Related areas of law
This book will also briefly provide an overview of how non-nationals are treated under related areas of law, such as tax law (which classifies non-nationals into resident and non-resident aliens, the former treated largely the same as U.S. nationals) and social insurance programs (such eligibility for Social Security and Medicare benefits), although this is by no means a comprehensive discussion of the subject.

Customs
This book does not discuss customs law. Although customs and immigration laws are both enforced by some of the same agencies (at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and globally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Who is the subject of immigration law?
As we will discuss in the first chapter of this book, most parts of immigration law do not apply to U.S. nationals—but this by no means implies that it does not impact them. For example, U.S. nationals.

Terminology
As we will discuss later, the terms citizen and national are not identical. All U.S. citizens are U.S. nationals, but a small number of people connected to U.S. territories hold only nationality, but not citizenship. This book will use the corrected

Another impo. This book will use the term non-citizen

History
For the most part, this book will aim to focus on current law, and use terms as they are defined within the framework of current United Sates law. However, this section is provided as a brief overview of how the nation regulated immigration throughout its history. It is intended both as an acknowledgement, and

Early laws
The Congress of the United States of America passed its first immigration-related bill in March 1790, less than two years after the ratification of the new Constitution in 1789. This law first defined how the new nation would grant citizenship to foreigners (a process called naturalization) any white,. The act did not discuss immigration per se, only naturalization of those already relevant, and the modern concepts of work permits, visas, and. Additionally, the states also had The duration of required residence was extended in 1795 and again in 1798, then reduced in 1802; these laws also restricted naturalization of those who fought for the British Army in the Revolutionary War.

Initially, the Constitution itself made little mention of immigration and nationality matters, beyond requiring that only "natural born citizens" shall be eligible for the office of President or Vice-President. However, the Constitution now explicitly provides for the system of jus soli (granting citizenship to everyone born inside the country). Enacted in 1868 during the post-Civil War period of Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment has had an incredibly significant impact on many United States law. The primary focus at the time was protecting citizenship for Black American

Creating the modern system
The basic structure of the modern immigration system was set out in the