Could the U.S. squeak out a compelling argument that it is not bound by the Equal Protection Clause or that it be treated differently than states? Points of law “The Equal Protection Clause prohibits a State from &quot;deny[ing] to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.&quot; Amdt. 14, § 1.” Evenwel v. Abbott, 578 U.S. 54, 76 (2016) It does, indeed: &quot;No State shall […] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.&quot; (U.S. Const. Amdt. 14, § 1.) Research and axiomatic foundations Many of the particular rules and federal decisional laws deriving from the Equal Protection Clause follow this principle; however, I have not been able to locate a formulation of it such that would declare it as a matter of law binding the federal government, and not just one state or another. For this reason, I believed this might have been one of &quot;&quot;those settled usages and modes of proceeding&quot; found in the common law[; (Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land &amp; Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 277 (1856)) … or ancient rules&quot; (Wooden v. United States (Mar. 7, 2022, No. 20-5279) [pp. 33-34]) conserved and provided under the Fifth Amendment in the meaning of the Due Process of Law. For this reason, I looked at parallel legal systems into which the same ancient European ancestor divided into in hope to find an ancient latin sobriquet that would be used so and potentially carry similar meaning under U.S. jurisprudence. The continental (and now British) jurisprudential principle of the &quot;equality of arms&quot; provides that the integruos or decent process of law requires that &quot;the prosecution and the defence have equal opportunity and opportunity to express their views and positions on questions of fact and law in criminal proceedings [… under] Article 6(3) of the [European Convention of Human Rights (&quot;ECHR&quot;)] […] and &quot;ECtHR considers all non-criminal proceedings as civil proceedings for the purposes of Article 6, [(incl. of 'fair trial' in Article 6(1))] it should be borne in mind that the category established by the ECtHR includes administrative proceedings in addition to civil proceedings in the constitutional sense, where the requirement of equality of arms must also be satisfied.&quot; (Erzsébet A. Gácsi, The principle of equality of arms the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, 2007, DeepL translation) Question I found no Latin cognate of the &quot;equality of arms&quot;, and I failed to find it explicitly named under U.S. jurisprudence; hence, my own research ended there, and my question began here: Can an argument be made that the federal government is not also bound by the same principle expressed here, in other words, can an argument be made that: The Federal government may deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Accordingly, could an argument be made that the federal government is not subject to the provisions or any subsequent decisional-law formulation of the U.S. Constitution requiring that &quot;all persons similarly circumstanced … be treated alike&quot; (Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216 (1982)) including by the United States? Or even better, was there ever any binding argument made to such effect?
No. While the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to the federal government, the Supreme Court has read the same requirements into the 5th Amendment. This is generally considered to have started with Bolling v. Sharpe 347 U.S. 497 (1954) (in this case, &quot;the Court began in earnest to fold an &quot;equal protection&quot; guarantee into the concept of &quot;due process.&quot;” United States v. Madero, No. 20-303, at *9 (Apr. 21, 2022)), and as Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 92 (1976) put it, Equal protection analysis in the Fifth Amendment area is the same as that under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Current Place of Magna Carta in US law Magna Carta is not now a current statute in any part of the US. I don't think it ever was (not since the US became independent of the UK), but I am not sure of that. Its words influenced the drafters of the US Federal Constitution. In some cases it may thus be helpful in understanding the original intention of the framers, but probably The Federalist and the records of the debates of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention are far more persuasive and more helpful. The major decisions of the Marshall Court are also very relevant. The US Supreme Court can and does change its interpretation of laws passed by Congress and of the Constitution. The words of Magna Carta are not more binding than Supreme Court decisions. In fact they are not binding at all, on any court or official in the US in any way. They are part of our legal history, but they are mnot current law, no more than the Code of Justinian or the Laws of Hammurabi are. The detailed procedural rules of Magna Carta are certainly not in fore in the US in 2022, nor in the UK either. The Ninth Amendment, which protects unenumerated rights of the states and the People does not protect,such procedural details, At least it has never been held to do so, to the best of my knowledge. I don't even know of a case where such a contention was seriously argued. The question states that: The meaning of “Due Process of Law” of the Fifth Amendment is, primarily, chapter 28 of Magna Carta and everything that built on it by judicial decisions. There is a sense in which this is true, but a very weak one. The concept of “Due Process of Law” was to some extent spelled out in Magna Carta, and later court decisions and legal and political philosophers (such as Locke) built on it. But most of the specifics of what constitute &quot;due process&quot; at the time of Magna Carta have since been dropped, and most of the current requirements were added much later. The idea of a hearing before an impartial tribunal, where the accused can present evidence, goes back to MC. Other requirements of due process, such as a right to a lawyer, rights against self-incrimination, rights against double jeopardy, the right of an accused to testify under oath, the right of an accused to issue subpoenas to witnesses, the right to an impartial jury, The right to be free of search, seizure or arrest unless probable cause has been shown under oath, and many others were added long after MC, some not until the 20th century. Such one-time aspects of due process as the right to be tried by members of one's own social class, a vital aspect of MC, are long gone, and never really existed in the US. Two-Witness Rule There was an early debate in a Supreme Court case, a perjury case if I recall correctly, on the need for two witnesses for conviction, but later statues have altered that rule. I don't know of any such rule ever applying to arrests in the US. It surely does not apply now. Coke and Magna Carta Early in the 1600s Lord Justice Edward Coke used the text of Magna Carta (among other things) to argue that Equity courts should not be able to use injunctions to stop cases pending in common-law courts. To do this he gave to Magna Carta a semi-sacred status it did not have when it was originally issued. (Indeed J.C. Holt, in his classic study Magna Carta, arguses that the charter was a victory for King John, and a defeat for the Barons, because the Barons allowed themselves to be bought off by promises that John never intended to keep, and that were not, in fact, kept. He further argues that it was the re-issues over the period 50-100 years later that gave MC what contemporary force it had, but that it was Coke's invocation of it that gave it the modern reputation as a foundation of freedom. I agree.) Coke claimed things for Magna Carta it could not have meant at the time it was issued, as the equity courts did not exist as an institution at that time, and would not for several generations. Charles Rembar, in his excellent non-technical history of Anglo-american law, The Law of the Land: The Evolution of Our Legal System (ISBN: 978-1-5040-1566-0; 1980) wrote (pp. 57-8): Early in the 1600s, Lord Justice Coke declared that neither king nor Parliament could transgress fundamental principles of common law. In time the proposition was true enough for king (also, academic: he himself could make no law, fundamental or trivial), but it has never held for Parliament; no one in office followed Coke along this line, not even Coke himself. Removed from the bench, he entered the House of Commons, and fought the Stuarts there. In the last stage of his long career, Coke asserted the utter supremacy of Parliament, an assertion which by the century’s end had become the constitutional law of England. The equation of &quot;Due Process of Law&quot; with &quot;Law of the land&quot; was part of this argument on Coke's part; it was, in effect, a piece of spin, which not all later scholars have noticed. &quot;Due process&quot; was, at beat, a part of the &quot;law of the land&quot;, and it was always subject to modification by Act of Parliament (earlier, by acts of King-in-Council). It is true tht the US Supreme court has taken &quot;Due process&quot; in a procedural sense, to imply in most cases the right to a hearing, before an impartial tribunal, including a right to present witnesses and evidence, and that several of these principles are mentioned in Magna Carta, and come down to us from MC through much legal history. Magna Carta in the Case of Murray's Lessee In the case of Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land &amp; Improvement Co., 59 U.S. 272 (1856) The US Supreme Court looked back throigh legal history to consider what is and is not permitted by the US Fifth Amendment, and its &quot;Due process&quot; clause. This is the kind of extensive excursion into legal history that was more common in Court opinions from the fist half of the Nineteenth Century that it is now. (Rembar remarked, on p 170 of The Law of the Land, &quot;the Supreme Court, ... is fond of legal history and often gets it wrong.) But it is important to note how that opinion from the Taney Court (not the previous Marshall Court) used Magna Carta. The court wrote: [59 U. S. 277] We must examine the Constitution itself to see whether this process be in conflict with any of its provisions. If not found to be so, we must look to those settled usages and modes of proceeding existing in the common and statute law of England, before the emigration of our ancestors, and which are shown not to have been unsuited to their civil and political condition by having been acted on by them after the settlement of this country. We apprehend there has been no period since the establishment of the English monarchy when there has not been, by the law of the land, a summary method for the recovery of debts due to the crown, and especially those due from receivers of the revenues. It is difficult, at this day, to trace with precision all the proceedings had for these purposes in the earliest ages of the common law. In short that court is interested in Magna Carta only as it has influenced US state and Federal statutes. It in no way states or implies that the exact procedure of Magna Carta must be that of the current US, or is assumed to be such in the absence of a statute changing that procedure. Rather it looks at how US States adopted procedures derived from MC as a guide to the meaning of the Due process clause. After discussing at 59 U. S. 278 what the procedure for retrieving money from tax officials who had allegedly retained it improperly under the statutes of the Tudors (already long after Magna Carta, although well before Coke) the Court wrote: [59 U. S. 278] This brief sketch of the modes of proceeding to ascertain and enforce payment of balances due from receivers of the revenue in England is sufficient to show that the methods of ascertaining the existence and amount of such debts and compelling their payment have varied widely from the usual course of the common law on other subjects, and that, as respects such debts due from such officers, &quot;the law of the land&quot; authorized the employment of auditors, and an inquisition without notice, and a species of execution bearing a very close resemblance to what is termed a warrant of distress in the act of 1820, now in question. It is certain that this diversity in &quot;the law of the land&quot; between public defaulters and ordinary debtors was understood in this country, and entered into the legislation of the colonies and provinces, and more especially of the States, after the declaration of independence and before the formation of the Constitution of the United States. ... [59 U. S. 279-280] Provisions not distinguishable from these in principle may be found in the acts of Connecticut (Revision of 1784, p. 198), of Pennsylvania, 1782 (2 Laws of Penn. 13); of South Carolina, 1788 (5 Stats. of S.C. 55); New York, 1788 (1 Jones &amp; Varick's Laws, 34); see also 1 Henning's Stats. of Virginia, 319, 343; 12 ibid. 562; Laws of Vermont (1797, 1800), 340. Since the formation of the Constitution of the United States, other States have passed similar laws. This legislative construction of the Constitution, commencing so early in the government when the first occasion for this manner of proceeding arose, continued throughout its existence, and repeatedly acted on by the judiciary and the executive, is entitled to no inconsiderable weight upon the question whether the proceeding adopted by it was &quot;due process of law.&quot; *Prigg v. Pennsylvania-, 16 Pet. 621; United States v. Nourse, 9 Pet. 8; Randolph's Case, 2 Brock. 447; Nourse's Case, 4 Cranch C.C.R. 151. Tested by the common and statute law of England prior to the emigration of our ancestors, and by the laws of many of the States at the time of the adoption of this amendment, the proceedings authorized by the act of 1820 cannot be denied to be due process of law when applied to the ascertainment and recovery of balances due to the government from a collector of customs It is to support this last conclusion on what is and is not Due Process under the Fifth Amendment that the Court examined history, including Magna Carta. All the rest of this discussion of history was Obiter Dictum not binding precedent. And of course, not Supreme Court precedent is binding on future Supreme Court rulings. The court can and does overturn its own decisions, and change its interpretations of the Constitution. Wooden v. United States and its citation of Murray's Lessee In Wooden v. United States (Mar. 7, 2022, No. 20-5279), Justice GORSUCH in his opinion concurring in the result, but dissenting from the majority opinion's reasoning, wrote, starting on page 6 of his separate opinion: Consider lenity’s relationship to due process. Under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, neither the federal government nor the States may deprive individuals of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law&quot; Amdts. 5, 14. Generally, that guarantee requires governments seeking to take a person’s freedom or possessions to adhere to “those settled usages and modes of proceeding” found in the common law. Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land &amp; Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 277 (1856); N. Chapman &amp; M. McConnell, Due Process as Separation of Powers, 121 Yale L. J. 1672, 1774–1775 (2012). And among those “settled usages” is the ancient rule that the law must afford ordinary people fair notice of its demands. See, e.g., Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U. S. ___, – (2018) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 3– 5). Lenity works to enforce the fair notice requirement by ensuring that an individual’s liberty always prevails over ambiguous law. Early cases confirm the message. In United States v. Wiltberger, a sailor had killed an individual on a river in China. 5 Wheat. 76, 77 (1820). But the federal statute under which he was charged criminalized manslaughter only on the “‘high seas.’” Id., at 93 (quoting Act of Apr. 30, 1790, § 12, 1 Stat. 115). Chief Justice Marshall acknowledged that other parts of the law might have suggested Congress intended to capture the sailor’s conduct. 5 Wheat., at 105. But he insisted that “penal laws are to be construed strictly” because of “the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals”—and, more specifically, the right of every person to suffer only those punishments dictated by “the plain meaning of words.” ... United States v. Mann tells a similar story. 26 F. Cas. 1153 (No. 15,718) (CC NH 1812). ... As the framers understood, “subjecting . . . men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law . . . ha[s] been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instrumen[t] of tyranny.” The Federalist No. 84, pp. 511–512 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton); see also McBoyle v. United States, 283 U. S. 25, 27 (1931) Although it is not likely that a criminal will carefully consider the text of the law . . . fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand The first thing to note is that this is not a majority opinion, and so not binding law. Indeed another opinion in this case specifically responds to Justice Gorsuch's views, taking issue with them. The next thing to note is that while the opinion does cite Murray’s Lessee, it never so much as mentions Magna Carta, nor does it quote any of the mentions of Magna Carta in Murray’s Lessee. Justice Gorsuch cites Murray’s Lessee to support two principles. One is the &quot;rule of lenity&quot; whch says theist when there is ambiguity in a criminal statute, it shall be read so as to favor the accused. The other is the &quot;rule of fair notice&quot; which says that a person shall not be convicted of crime unless some law clearly makes the actions charged criminal. Justice Gorsuch derives both of these from the Due Process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments. To establish this, he cites, not Magna Carta, nor cases from Tudor times, nor US cases from before the Constitution, but US Supreme Court cases written by Justices Marshall and Story (both members of the Marshall Court), and one of the numbers of The Federalist (often considered a good guide to the intentions of the framers). Nothing in this citation implies that the detailed procedures of Magna Carta are now in force, nor that they ever were in the US. It applies only a general rule of law, not a detailed procedure, and that on the basis of US Supreme Court precedent, not because Magna Carta says so. The Great Charter may have been one of the earliest statements of these rules, but it is the reconfirmation of them, in case after US case, that makes them part of US law today.
The interpretation of state rules of civil procedure is a matter purely for state courts. Whether a state procedural rule (or even substantive approaches to jurisdiction) violates federal law, including the U.S. Constitution, is a question of federal law, but state courts are still competent to answer such questions that arise in the process of state litigation, subject only to precedent from the Supreme Court of the United States. I may be starting to just repeat things now, but even if the legal issue you're interested in (the extent to which trial courts are divested of jurisdiction during non-frivilous interlocutory appeals in matters controlled by the FAA) is substantive or jurisdictional rather than procedural, Federal circuits do not bind state courts. However, the Supreme Court of the United States can provide binding prcedent on federal law that state courts must apply. I could see the reasons in Coinbase being written broadly enough to apply to both state and federal proceedings.
Here's some of the law in the area of prosecutorial discretion: In the ordinary case, “so long as the prosecutor has probable cause to believe that the accused committed an offense defined by statute, the decision whether or not to prosecute, and what charge to file or bring before a grand jury, generally rests entirely in his discretion.” Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 364, 98 S. Ct. 663, 668, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978). Of course, a prosecutor's discretion is “subject to constitutional constraints.” United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114, 125, 99 S. Ct. 2198, 2204–2205, 60 L.Ed.2d 755 (1979). One of these constraints, imposed by the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 500, 74 S. Ct. 693, 694–695, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954), is that the decision whether to prosecute may not be based on “an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification,” Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 456, 82 S. Ct. 501, 506, 7 L.Ed.2d 446 (1962). A defendant may demonstrate that the administration of a criminal law is “directed so exclusively against a particular class of persons ... with a mind so unequal and oppressive” that the system of prosecution amounts to “a practical denial” of equal protection of the law. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 373, 6 S. Ct. 1064, 1073, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886). In order to dispel the presumption that a prosecutor has not violated equal protection, a criminal defendant must present “clear evidence to the contrary.” Chemical Foundation, supra, at 14–15, 47 S. Ct., at 6. We explained in Wayte why courts are “properly hesitant to examine the decision whether to prosecute.” 470 U.S., at 608, 105 S. Ct., at 1531. Judicial deference to the decisions of these executive officers rests in part on an assessment of the relative competence of prosecutors and courts. “Such factors as the strength of the case, the prosecution's general deterrence value, the Government's enforcement priorities, and the case's relationship to the Government's overall enforcement plan are not readily susceptible to the kind of analysis the courts are competent to undertake.” Id., at 607, 105 S. Ct., at 1530. It also stems from a concern not to unnecessarily impair the performance of a core executive constitutional function. “Examining the basis of a prosecution delays the criminal proceeding, threatens to chill law enforcement by subjecting the prosecutor's motives and decisionmaking to outside inquiry, and may undermine prosecutorial effectiveness by revealing the Government's enforcement policy.” Ibid. United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464–65 (1996).
Clearly, British laws against e.g. murder, theft, fraud, and most other crimes were received into state law because those matters are under the jurisdiction of the states. States (and also to some extent federal criminal statutes) received British common law definitions of various crimes and defenses, but not British penal statutes (which often didn't define those crimes in the late 18th century). The statutory law of Britain did not apply as U.S. law at either the state or federal level upon the U.S. Declaration of Independence, except in isolated cases where a state, or the federal government expressly adopted it by reference in their own statute. The existence of British law, both statutory and through case law, informs how the U.S. common law was understood (something that was predominantly a matter of state law) and how concept in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. federal statutes, and state constitutions and statutes were understood (especially when terms from British statutes are used in a similar matter in U.S. state and federal statutes and constitutions). But, British statutes did not have direct force and effect in the U.S. after independence. As much as anything else, this simply reflect how the nature of statutes v. common law was understood in the late 18th and early 19th century. Nobody expected that British statutes would be directly applicable, so they weren't. There may have been instances where common law rules actually had their roots in British statutes that were mostly forgotten in long layers of British common law case law, and many statutes expressly adopting British case law also expressly incorporate selected relevant British statutes of generally applicability. But, no British statutes were applicable &quot;automatically&quot; in the U.S. For example, before Congress enacted the Naturalization Act of 1790, would a person born outside the US to a US citizen father have been a US citizen by dint of the US &quot;inheriting&quot; the British Nationality Act 1772 mutatis mutandis? No. Basic ways of thinking about what nationality or citizenship even was or meant would have been received, but not by receiving the British Nationality Act 1772 as U.S. law. And before Congress enacted the Crimes Act of 1790, would an American who levied war against the US, gave aid and comfort to its enemies, or counterfeited US currency have been convicted and sentenced under the Treason Act 1351? Not really. From the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 until the adoption of the Articles of Confederation on June 11, 1777, as a practical matter, the revolutionary forced had very little actual control of the courts in an enforceable way, there was an insurgency against the British underway, and it was an ad hoc effort from day to day and month to month that was muddled through without a formal structure or guidance at a colony by colony level, or even more granularly within a colony. In the period from June 11, 1777 until the new U.S. Constitution was implemented in 1789-1790, under the Articles of Confederation, the situation was fluid and irregular. State governments made most statutory and common law, adopting their colonial era colonial statutes but not necessarily British statutes that their local legislature didn't adopt. Central government laws usually acted on the states, not directly on individuals, much like treaties today. There was little or no directly applicable central government legislation. Many topics, like citizenship, were simply ignored in this era. The U.S. Constitution adopted in 1789, and the initial acts of the First Congress to implement it, were a response to the realization that after the war and its immediate aftermath had settled down, that the newly formed country needed to regularize, institutionalize, and deal with a lot of governance issues and legal questions that nobody had had the time or resources or authority to deal with while a war had been going on. For much of this time period the Revolutionary War was in progress and it wasn't always obvious who even controlled the courts or had practice authority to enforce court judgments. The Revolutionary War was not concluded until 1783. It was an improvisation at first, and not necessarily a uniform one, since the Articles of Confederation conceived of the U.S. as many countries in an alliance with each other rather than an actual single nation that had to address legal issues uniformly. Prior to the establishment of the federal court system under the U.S. Constitution of 1789 that remains in force, the only institution of the central government was Congress and its committees, which functioned as a legislative body, a body selecting people with executive authority, and as a court of last resort from state court judgments. Everything was carried out at the state level except for courts-martial. Structurally, the Articles of Confederation were a fused system, akin to the U.K. Parliament which had its highest court of appeals and its prime ministership fused with the legislative authority of parliament, layered on top of 13 separate sovereign state governments.
Almost no constitutional right, for the most part, applies or gives rise to an all-encompassing right at all times. Schools can determine that certain times are off limits as activity during those times may interrupt the environment most conducive to learning, or for other articulable reasons; this is fine so long as it is applied evenly. Schools may say you may not hand out literature at certain times, only before or after classes, weekends, or put limits on the place or manner of distribution. There are examples of this premise that exist, pertaining to nearly every right, otherwise considered absolute. This is no different than the principle that while Americans enjoy the right to free speech, not all speech is protected at all times, or that the right to bear arms does not apply to all people, places, or environs.
tl;dr My assumption: the U.S. government is considering whether to accept refugees and immigrants (given your Syria comment). The background section talks about State attempts to restrict entry. The answer is nuanced since there are different standards for an entrance decision than there are for someone who is already in the U.S. This is because foreign nationals in their home nations aren't "persons within the jurisdiction of the United States," and so laws like the Civil Rights Act only apply in spirit. What does that mean? We wouldn't expect to see the federal government discriminate based on religion, but we might expect to see decisions made about groups that incidentally share an common religion. This is because the federal government has wide latitude when it comes to alienage---which is just a formal name for policies related to non-citizens. While religion is afforded a high degree of protection, the federal government's alienage policies are governed by the lowest level of judicial scrutiny. This implies a practical challenge: things like religion and national origin can be very difficult to disentangle from questions that pertain to the alienage category. For example, a policy might restrict some group's entry "because of" a particular alienage reason and "in spite of" the fact that most of the affected people happen to share a common religion. Background The Equal Protection Clause U.S. Const. Am. XIV § 1 prohibits States from denying any person within its jurisdiction "equal protection of the laws." The Clause is often applied to the federal government as well, via the Due Process Clause U.S. Const. Am. V. See, e.g. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954). In relation to the clause, laws are reviewed for their constitutionality using either strict, intermediate, or rational basis scrutiny. Strict scrutiny would mean that in order to distinguish based on a particular trait, the government has to have a compelling, narrowly tailored interest, and no less restrictive alternative available. Rational basis just means the government's interest is subject to a lower level of scrutiny (e.g. benefits exceed costs, or don't let in felons). Things like, race, religion, national origin, and some forms of alienage are suspect classes that merit strict scrutiny. This bit about alienage is important. As we'd expect from the above, when States enact alienage statutes, they're subject to strict scrutiny, and when those statues cross the line, the courts have found that State attempts to restrict resident or non-resident aliens encroach upon the federal government's exclusive control over entrance of aliens. Graham v. Department of Pub. Welfare, 403 U.S. 365 (1971). In other words, the federal government, not the States, decides whether various "aliens" are admitted. Note: State scrutiny levels when dealing with undocumented immigrants may be context specific. See, e.g. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) (children and education). The federal government's authority over immigration is further solidified by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Const. Article VI. See Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67 (1967). As such, the courts have applied rational basis scrutiny to the federal government's immigration policy. One reason alienage is interesting is that it tends to encompass things like national origin and religion. This doesn't imply the federal government makes its decisions on the basis of religion. In fact, it'd be hard to make an argument that they do. However, since the categories can be so closely entwined, many scholars have argued for a change in standard. Edit In hindsight, this topic seems quite forward looking. A couple weeks after the OP's question a U.S. presidential candidate (Donald Trump) came out in favor of a ban on entry into the U.S. by Muslims. That led to a flurry of activity, and to this insightful blog post by Professor E. Posner.
States have a general police power, meaning that they can pass laws about whatever they want unless there's a specific reason they can't. A state does not have to give special justification for why something is in the realm of stuff they can regulate; someone challenging it has to say what specific section of the Constitution it violates. For a time, the Due Process clause of the US Constitution was considered to imply freedom of contract. This time ended in the 1930s. The doctrine of a constitutionally protected freedom of contract is pretty much completely dead. A state can't abridge the freedom of contract for no reason, but that's because just about any law needs some reason to be allowed. The level of review is that the law is rationally related to a legitimate state interest; this is not a very demanding level of review. Source State bar associations are given power by laws making it illegal to practice law without being a member of the bar and requiring licensed lawyers to comply with bar rules. State bars that control admission to practice are generally government agencies (specifically, agencies of the court system). When the state bar is not a government agency, attorney discipline and licensing is handled by a government agency (lawyers might have to join the bar, but the bar has to accept licensed lawyers as members; the bar's power in these cases is limited to recommendations to the courts).