Replies

There was no such thing as an illegal alien until the 1920s. Your whole line of thinking is ridiculous because when the Cponstitution was written and for 130 year after that, there was no concept of an illegal alien.

My ancestors transferred from a large ship to a small boat and came up the river to PA. There was no immigration law for them to violate by doing this. Immigration law said that vagrants, prostitutes, thieves and Chinese could not come to the US. But the enforcement was in the local sheriff proving that they were a vagrant, prostitute, etc.

In Chicago in the 1960s Immigration enforcement was almost totally a Chicago Police Department function. I participated in identifying and deporting so-called undesireables. The one I focused on were typically those who got into a bar fight. They were undesireable in my book.

Federal enforcement of immigration was mostly focused on finding and deporting exNazis and other “war criminals” and people wanted by European countries. The CPD had a good working relationship with the local police in Mexico and routinely gave each other heads-up.

Nixon, the most left wing president of my lifetime, changed all that and took away local control and centralized immigration enforcement in the Feds. Centralization of immigration is precisely what led to the current problem of undesireables.

Chicago’s Mayor fought Nixon in court to keep local control... and lost to LBJ appointed judges.

The LBJ-Nixon years saw the snowballing of central government control, the source of problems in other areas also.

There was no such thing as an illegal alien until the 1920s. Your whole line of thinking is ridiculous....

See my #37 for the initial immigration control law of 1882. Your line of thinking is totally detached from reality and the law.

My ancestors transferred from a large ship to a small boat and came up the river to PA. There was no immigration law for them to violate by doing this.

There was an immigration law after 1882 which I cited, linked and quoted in full.

In Chicago in the 1960s Immigration enforcement was almost totally a Chicago Police Department function.

Tell that to Congress and the Supreme Court.

Nixon, the most left wing president of my lifetime, changed all that and took away local control and centralized immigration enforcement in the Feds.

Nixon was to the left of Obama. There's a novel concept.

Centralization of immigration control occurred with the Constitution. State attempts to control it or tax it were struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional because the State lacked authority in that area. To Congress alone was conferred the sole and exclusive authority concerning admission of aliens to the United States. There is an ample supply of case law from the 19th century.

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep092/usrep092275/usrep092275.pdf

Chuy Lung v Freeman, 92 U.S. 275, 280 (1875)

The Constitution of the United States is no such instrument. The passage of laws which concern the admission of citizens and subjects of foreign nations to our shores belongs to Congress, and not to the States. It has the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations: the responsibility for the character of those regulations, and for the manner of their execution, belongs solely to the national government. If it be otherwise, a single State can, at her pleasure, embroil us in disastrous quarrels with other nations.

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep048/usrep048283/usrep048283.pdf

Smith v. Turner; Norris v. Boston, 48 U.S. 283 (1849)

Orders.
Smith v. Turner.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record of the Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors of the State of New York, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is the opinion of this court, that the statute law of New York, by which the health commissioner of the city of New York is declared entitled to demand and receive, from the master of every vessel from a foreign port that should arrive in the port of said city, the sum of one dollar for each steerage passenger brought in such vessel, is repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and therefore void. Whereupon, it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that the judgment of the said Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors be and the same is hereby reversed, with costs, and that this cause be and the same is hereby remanded to the said Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the.Correction of Errors, in order that further proceedings may be had therein, in conformity to the aforesaid opinion and judgment of this court.
Norris v. City of Boston.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is the opinion of this court, that the third section of the act of the legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of the 20th of April, 1837, entitled, “An act relating to alien passengers,” under which the money mentioned in the record and pleadings was demanded of the plaintiff in error, and paid by him, is repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and therefore void. Whereupon, it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court, that the judgment of the said Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts be and the same is hereby reversed, with costs, and that this cause be and the same is hereby remanded to the said Supreme Judicial Court, in order that further proceedings may be had therein in conformity to the aforesaid opinion and judgment of this court.

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep107/usrep107059/usrep107059.pdf

People v Compagnie Generale Transatlanticique, 107 U.S. 59, 63 (1882)

In fact, these statutes differ from those heretofore held void only in calling them in their caption "inspection laws," and in providing for payment of any surplus, after the support of paupers, criminals, and diseased persons, into the treasury of the United States, — a surplus which, in this enlarged view of what are the expenses of an inspection law, it is safe to say will never exist.
A State cannot make a law designed to raise money to support paupers, to detect or prevent crime, to guard against disease, and to cure the sick, an inspection law, within the constitutional meaning of that word, by calling it so in the title.
Since the decision of this case in the Circuit Court, Congress has undertaken to do what this court has repeatedly said it alone had the power to do. By the act of Aug. 3, 1882, c. 376, entitled " An Act to regulate immigration," a duty of fifty cents is to be collected, for every passenger not a citizen of the United States who shall come to any port within the United States by steam or sail vessel from a foreign country, from the master of said vessel by the collector of customs. The money so collected is to be paid into the treasury of the United States, and to constitute a fund to be called the immigrant fund, for the care of immigrants arriving in the United States, and the relief of such as are in distress. The Secretary of the Treasury is charged with the duty of executing the provisions of the act and with supervision over the business of immigration. No more of the fund so raised is to be expended in any port than is collected there. This legislation covers the same ground as the New York statute, and they cannot coexist.