The Constitution does not throw its hands up completely and leave the states without authority of any kind ~ it did, in fact, leave "importation of such persons" to the states AND then only restricted that with a TAX.
Hmm ~ yup ~ there's a darned good question concerning the federales authority to set immigration quotas ~ if that's not also linked to the issue of uniformity of process which is certainly imposed by the constitution.
Some of the things you imagine to be sanctioned directly by the Constitution, or through the doctrine of necessary implication ARE NOT, in fact, sanctioned, nor does that doctrine apply.
You'll find, instead, that the Supreme Court will refer to the IMPLIED POWERS and for that they'll turn to the predecessor standards ~ in this case those of the King of Spain, Philippe II/III as stated in the Treaty of London 1604 (that's our "founding founding document". I was just reading it last evening and the King of Spain dictated equal treatment of foreign and domestic merchants in the market place! He also dictated who was to be allowed in ~ and named the countries.
Mexico claims status as a successor entity to Spain in America. They have some treaties that suggest that to be a fact ~ where Spain agrees to recognize Mexico as an independent state.
Their history is a bit shorter than ours ~ they start out as Spain (in that 1604 treaty), then flip over to Mexico with the same rights and obligations with independence ~ even making the same land claims as Spain.
So, let's say 90% of the illegals are Mexicans. The Treaty of London of 1604 STATES that they will obey the civil and criminal laws of the countries where they enter.
I fail to see where any Mexican is exempt from the rules set forth in that treaty!
They simply can't come and go from the USA without adhering to the same laws we impose on our own citizens ~ you gotta' have a passport to get back in; they gotta' have a visa to get in. Without a visa they're not really here are they ~
I’m not arguing with you that there needs to be enforcement. So long as the state turns over those found to be here illegally to the ICE, then I have no issues with this.
The state, however, cannot violate citizen rights in order to investigate those who are here illegally. Fr’nstance, can’t pull someone over randomly without having some indication of illegal status.
Nor do they have the authority to deport those here illegally. The federal government issues the visas and so the enforcement of the visas and their issuance falls on them.
As for quotas, I don’t believe that there’s any requirement, for or against quotas. There’s nothing constitutionally that requires quotas, and in fact for the majority of the time of the republic, the nation had no quotas whatsoever.
Certain countries, Canada, fr’nstance, permits the provinces themselves to have some control over their own immigration. The same is not true of the states.