Had you told Congress, or the White House, in the 1970s or 1980s that the nation’s immigration system would, in the third decade of the 21st century, devolve into an intramural scrimmage between the states, they’d have thought you a fool.

Federal policy oversees and regulates immigration to the United States, they would have insisted, whichever side of the aisle they sat. Those policies may change over time, and indeed they have, through the Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, and the Immigration Act of 1990, to name just a few examples. But it’s always been a matter for the federal government, deriving its authority from Article One of the United States Constitution. Without reasonable question.

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