Source: Libertarian Institute
by Thomas Eddlem
“Few Americans today are aware of the vehement and principled opposition to both the Alien and Sedition Acts by American founders Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions that control over immigration was constitutionally administered by the states (and except for these rarely-invoked Alien Acts of 1798, would continue to be until 1892), and that the Tenth Amendment prohibited the federal government from even legislating on immigration … ‘Alien friends are under the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the State wherein they are: that no power over them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the individual States, distinct from their power over citizens.’ … If your head is exploding because you didn’t know that immigration is not among the enumerated powers of the federal government … you’re not alone.” (04/29/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/trump-revives-the-alien-and-sedition-acts