Formalizing Local Citizenship

INTRODUCTION States and localities have had an uneasy relationship with non-citizens, or at least that is how we mostly imagine it. Before the advent of federal immigration controls in the late nineteenth century, the states were left to their own devices in restricting freedom of movement. As the federal government sought to impose control over the admission, removal, and treatment of non-citizens, state and local measures discriminating against non-citizens were brought into relief through diplomatic controversy and judicial challenge. Pathologies typically occupy a higher profile in our histories, and there were clearly many contexts in which states and localities enjoyed a benign, even close relationship with non-citizen immigrants and immigrant communities. With the zenith of federal exclusivity over immigration regulation through the mid and late twentieth century, however, state and local governments were presumed to have antagonistic tendencies towards non-citizens. The reflex, constitutional and otherwise, was to eliminate sub-federal discretion in the area.