The Alien and Sedition Acts aimed to create new powers to deport foreigners at the same time it made harder for immigrants to vote and gain citizenship. The Acts restrained a series of other liberties such as protesting the government and freedom of the press.
The government could use fines and imprisonment against those who criticized it by printing, writing or publishing any opinion. Because of that, many of them were arrested and imprisoned.
The Acts also caused the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions which was a protest against them. The Resolutions argued that the states had the right to decided when their powers had been infringed or not and that the Acts were void and had no force inside their territories.