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> Supreme Court precedent is that states cannot be compelled by Congress to enforce Immigration law

Not just immigration law but federal law generally. It's funny that this never reached the point of beign a decision rule in a case and thus binding precedent until the 1990s, as you see it in dicta in Supreme Court cases decided on other bases back to shortly before the Civil War (specifically, in cases around the Fugitive Slave Laws.)

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Might it be because the federal government simply did not need to exercise much authority over the states? As a non-expert I am curious. I am continually amazed by how much authority is delegated to the states and local jurisdictions in the United States (e.g. matters of marriage, property, voting, etc.). As I understand even citizenship was handled by local courts up until very recently.

> Might it be because the federal government simply did not need to exercise much authority over the states?

Yeah, it is absolutely because the federal government was simply not trying to commandeer state authorities to enforce federal law; the interesting part (to me) is that the courts were anticipating the problem well before it materialized.

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