Question

Why did Federalists target immigrants in the Alien and Sedition Acts?

Answer 1

Welcome to Open Study ^.^
Most immigrants supported the Democratic Republicans.

Answer 2

Remember post links where you get your answers from ^ ;P

Answer 3

The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the midst of the French Revolution and the undeclared naval war with France, known as the Quasi-War. Despite the XYZ Affair and the Quasi War inciting Francophobic sentiment in the majority of the American public, Democratic-Republicans remained pro-French and outspoken critics of the Federalist administration.
Federalists used the Alien and Sedition Acts to target Democratic-Republicans and and other "seditious elements" seeking to undermine the federal government.
A total of twenty-five people were arrested under the Acts; of these, eleven were tried, one died awaiting trial, and ten were convicted of sedition, often in trials before openly partisan Federalist judges.
Many of those convicted under the Sedition Act were pardoned by President Jefferson after the election of the Democratic-Republicans in 1800, and the Acts were left largely unenforced.
The Aliens Act was used over a century later to justify Japanese internment during World War II, and the Supreme Court was grappling with the constitutionality of the Sedition Acts as late as the 1960s.