[14] After an unsuccessful attempt to become part of the Mexican Empire, in 1823, Guatemala joined the Federal Republic of Central America, which drafted its first constitution in 1824.
The federal constitution established that those born in Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua were nationals and extended citizen rights to those who had been naturalized.
[16] The constitution also abolished slavery throughout the territory and allowed foreigners married to nationals of the constituent states to naturalize.
[18] Faced with the collapse of the Federal Republic, Guatemala created a provisional constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of the State and its Inhabitants (Declaración de los Derechos del Estado y sus Habitantes) in 1839.
[21] In 1868, when coffee production increased dramatically, a new Law on Foreigners allowed immigrants without criminal records, who were engaged in economic activities or were married to Guatemalans, to naturalize without the customary formalities.
It defined nationals as those who were naturalized, those born in the country regardless of the nationality of the child's parents, those from other Central American countries residing in Guatemala, or legitimate children or legally recognized illegitimate child born abroad to a Guatemalan father or illegitimate children born abroad to a Guatemalan mother who were residing in Guatemala or chose Guatemalan nationality upon reaching their majority.
[26] In 1933, the Guatemalan delegates to the Pan-American Union's Montevideo conference, signed the Inter-American Convention on the Nationality of Women, which became effective in 1934, without legal reservations.
Article 10 of the Act excluded Asians, blacks, and Roma from immigration, as well as those who had been convicted of a crime or had been expelled from other countries for anarchist or communist beliefs.