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Immigration Law
It’s necessary to start with some definitions, to make everything a lot easier to understand.
Citizen:
A citizen is a member of a political community, whose rights are defended by the country where he poses the citizenship.
Native-born citizen:
A person who was born in the country of his or her citizenship. This status is gained automatically at birth in most of countries, even if the parents are non-native.
Naturalized citizen:
A person who willingly chooses to apply for citizenship (and gains it) in a foreign country.
Alien:
Anybody who lives or works in a foreign country.
The basic immigration law of the United States is The Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA, created in 1952 and subject of multiple changes, both major and minor. INA defines an alien as any person who is not a citizen of the United States and sorts them in three major categories: resident/nonresident, immigrant/nonimmigrant, and illegal. The complete authority over immigration is assigned to the United States Congress while the president is limited to policies on refugees.
Significant changes and amendments were made in:
- 1965: the natural origin provisions where abolished
- 1986: IRCA sanctions for employers who were hiring illegal aliens were toughened
- 1986: The Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments limited the practice of getting married just to get citizenship
- 1990: The Immigration Act made the distribution of visas more equal throughout different countries.
If you want to find out more information, just fill the form on the top right of this page.
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