Cite as: 523 U. S. 767 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
INS applied to New Jersey for permission to construct a new seawall on filled land, which it received.26
Within a year of that, however, yet another view of the filled land's sovereignty began to develop in two other federal agencies, the view that neither State had a jurisdictional claim. Two Members of Congress from New Jersey, Senator
surface." Post, at 816. On the contrary, the reasonableness of any such belief is belied by the fact that New York, to this day, has never claimed that it had any such understanding, presumably for two very good reasons. First, in transferring "all the right, title, claim and interest of every kind" in certain submerged lands to the United States in 1904, New Jersey's conveyance sounded much like New York's conveyance to the National Government in 1808 of all "right, title, and interest" in the original Island. (While the latter transfer was expressly "for the defense and safety" of the city and port, these words were not treated as limitations on the rights of the United States even when it converted the Island from a military installation to an immigration station.) If, then, New York had believed that New Jersey had no interest left to assert, it would have had to say the same for itself in relation to the original Island. Indeed, New York would have been in an arguably weaker position: in 1800 it had ceded "jurisdiction" to the United States (saving only its right to serve process), the territory subject to its conveyance was within the boundary of New Jersey, and New York had no general territorial right in the area except police jurisdiction over the waters. The arguably comprehensive extent of the New York conveyances is, moreover, the reason that Justice Stevens is mistaken to label the 1890-1911 federal Harbor Line Board maps as obviously wrong. See post, at 826-827, n. 17.
Second, if the United States, and not New Jersey, had sovereign authority over the filled land as a result of the 1904 transfer, New York's prescriptive claim to that territory would fail as a matter of law; the United States is immune to prescription by a domestic entity. Texas v. Louisiana, 410 U. S. 702, 714 (1973); United States v. California, 332 U. S. 19, 39-40 (1947).
26 Justice Stevens, post, at 826, n. 17, contends that Corsi, who made the application on behalf of the INS, must have thought the seawall would be constructed in New York because he entered "New York" in a space on the permit application asking "[w]here work is contemplated." If Corsi truly thought the seawall was going to be constructed in New York, however, he must have been a whimsical soul to apply to New Jersey for a permit.
803
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