Like the Early Americans did it, Give States a Say in This

   So, you suppose it is up to the federal government to decide what to do with immigrants?
   You will be surprised to learn, then, that the very first federal law on the subject deferred to the states.
   Oh, it set forth federal requirements for what you must do to become a citizen: You must be a free white person, you must have lived here two years, you must be judged to be of good character, and you must take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
  But, then, right there at the end of the act, it said. "no person heretofore proscribed by any States, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid, except by an Act of the Legislature of the State in which such person was proscribed."
  Today, we consider it all a federal matter. It is interesting, then, that the first federal law should defer to the states. It makes you wonder if there is value in getting back to doing it they way the early practitioners of our nation did it. Let the states have a say in whether immigrants become citizens.