Quote Originally Posted by pkskyali View Post
I would rather say that migration or importation of persons is a states right until 1808, just to make that clear. After that date the federal government can prohibit it.





That's a moral obligation rather than a legal one, but it is enough to say that immigration policy is a national policy and the federal government has a moral and legal responsibility to restrict immigration. Immigration policy is by definition restrictive, immigration policy starts with making immigration the consequence of some legal permission based on eligibility and desirability. Maybe we want immigrants, maybe we don't. Immigration is not a civil right.





I would say that states have no right to provide for immigration beyond what national policy is. Immigration is necessarily a national policy and states have no right to loosen immigration policy because otherwise they are imposing immigration policy on other states. I think states have the right to be more restrictive than national policy, but not less restrictive.


Immigration must be a national policy because you cannot restrict the movement of non-citizens across state borders. And if immigrants become citizens, then they become citizens of any state in the United States. If one state mints citizens based on poor standards of eligibility or poor motivations in general, then the state is imposing a state standard on all the other states.
That's the federal thinking that got US into this mess. That's fine, suit yourself. Just don't hang your hat on the Constitution, because it's not your source of authority for the federal government to admit immigrants or imported labor/persons into the United States.