The Sustainers

In July of 1776 the word "citizen" was used for the first time in a public document, that document being the Declaration of Independence. Following the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment included African Americans as citizens. Through the end of the 1890s, courts and government carried out the Amendment's definition. Yet there is a modern problem of illegal immigrants: eleven million, maybe more, who are not citizens. From Jamestown and Plymouth Rock and through 1776 to the present time, The Sustainers presents the history, policy, and law of becoming a citizen and the role of Congress in adddressing current immigration issues.