The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was essentially an attempt to do an end run around the ruling of Prigg v . Pennsylvania , 41 U . S . 539 1842 . Prigg was a case that ruled unconstitutional a Pennsylvania law that made it a crime to let an escaped slave leave the state to be put back into bondage . The Court ruled that Pennsylvania ' s law was in violation of the then extant Article IV , Clause 3 of the U . S . Constitution , which read No Person held to Service or Labour in one State , under the Laws thereof , escaping into another , shall , in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein , be discharged from such Service or Labour , but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due . However , the Court in Prigg did weaken this constitutional provision by also ruling that Pennsylvania had no affirmative duty to assist in the capture of escaped slaves , and did not have to devote resources to enforce federal law . The Fugitive Slave Act attempted to make it illegal for any official to not return an escaped slave , and made it a federal crime to assist an escaped slave , but never received any serious challenge that was properly brought to the federal level . The closest was Ableman v . Booth , 62 U . S . 506 1859 , but that was the Wisconsin state court finding the act unconstitutional , to which the U . S . Supreme Court overruled the state court under the Supremacy Clause . However , in dicta , the Court did state that the Act of 1850 was in all of its provisions , fully authorized by the Constitution of the United States . However , these cases all rested on the fact that the right to have slaves returned to their owners was written into the Constitution . I don ' t think there is a serious argument that could be made that the Constitution grants some broad right to have a country free of illegal immigrants . Moreover , it would seem to be a vast overreach of power , under the current interpretation of federal law , to be able to revive a provision like the posse comitatus requirement of the Act of 1850 . Now , whether there could be some sort of bounty hunter system , like the slave catchers of the time , I suppose that ' s a possibility , but it wouldn ' t reach the level of extremity as the slave catcher system . The Act of 1850 denied basic due process rights to captured slaves , but under the 14 th Amendment , there is a wellestablished principal that anyone within the borders of the United States , even if they are here illegally , have due process rights . See Zadvydas v . Davis , 533 U . S . 678 , 693 2001 nce an alien enters the country , the legal circumstance changes , for the Due Process Clause applies to all ' persons ' within the United States , including aliens , whether their presence here is lawful , unlawful , temporary , or permanent . . So , a bounty hunter would have to follow all laws , turn the alleged illegal immigrant over to immigration officials , and then they would have a right to a deportation proceeding .