Since the late nineteenth century, the US federal government has enjoyed exclusive authority to decide whether someone has the ability to enter and stay in US territory. But freedom of movement was not guaranteed in the British colonies or early US. By contrast, voluntary migrants were met with strict laws and policies created by colonies and states, which denied free mobility and settlement in their territories to unwanted populations. Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship presents a story of constitutional development that traces the confluence of the logics of slavery and settler colonialism in early legal rulings and public policy about migration and citizenship. The book examines the division of labor between the national and state governments that endured for over a century, reasons why that arrangement changed in the late nineteenth century, and what the transformation meant for people subject to those regimes of control. Drawing into one study the migration policy histories of groups of people that are usually studied separately, and combining the methodologies of political science, history, and law, Anna O. Law reveals the unmistakable effects of slavery and Native American dispossession in modern US immigration policy. "The best works of history and political analysis show us that what was once invisible or taken for granted has had a history and a structure. Anna O. Law explains how American political development shaped the rules of migration. This book is comprehensive, illuminating, up to date in numerous fields - and couldn't be more timely. By defining migration to include enslaved and indigenous people, she innovates in U.S. history and in American Political Development." -- David Waldstreicher, author of Slavery's Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification "Anna Law's superb book breathes new life into an old chestnut of constitutional history - federalism - by highlighting the vital role played by states in regulating migration and mobility since the nation's founding. Law encourages us to think more broadly and deeply about "freedom of movement" and "the right to remain" as fundamental markers of citizenship and belonging. Freedom of migration for some - Euro-American settlers - often entailed limited mobility for others - the poor, Native Americans, and African Americans. Refreshingly free of academic jargon and analytically rich, Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship exposes the long history of contested politics over migration and the crucial precursors for today's debates about immigration policy." -- Lucy E. Salyer, University of New Hampshire "Timely, fascinating, and meticulous. Professor Anna Law has excavated a history of immigration and migration that is well known to marginalized populations as unknown to contemporary scholarship. Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship is a must read for students of American political development and policy makers in the United States interested actual history rather than mere bromides." -- Mark Graber, Regents Professor, University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law "In this rich, compelling, and authoritative book, Anna Law upends how we think about the relationships between immigration, slavery, and Native American dispossession. Among the most basic elements of membership and belonging is the right to move freely and to set down roots, yet Professor Law masterfully chronicles how elusive these rights were for nearly everyone but European immigrants and their descendants in colonial and 19th century America. Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship is a powerful contribution to citizenship and immigration studies." -- Daniel J. Tichenor, Philip H. Knight Chair of Social Science, University of Oregon Anna O. Law is the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights in the Department of Political Science at CUNY Brooklyn College. She completed her PhD in Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Her publications appear in political science, history, and law journals and investigate the interaction between law, legal institutions, and politics. Her first book, The Immigration Battle in American Courts (2010), examined the role of the federal judiciary in U.S. immigration. She teaches and researches in U.S. constitutional law, federal courts, U.S. immigration policy history, federalism, American Political Development, and race/ethnicity.