Thought it would be interesting to take a quick look back at US immigration policy in the past …
Tuesday, November 12, marked the anniversary of the closing of Ellis Island in 1954. Over 12 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954. Migrants from southern and Eastern Europe began swelling the numbers of immigrants beginning in the 1880s.
The BBC has a fascinating article 'That was the greatest day of all our lives': The migrants who passed through Ellis Island detailing US immigration policy over the years.
Some interesting facts:
- According to the National Park Service, 40% of Americans alive today trace their roots in the US back to Ellis Island.
- First and Second class passengers were screened on their boats and entered the country without passing through Ellis Island.
- Children were asked their names to make sure they could speak. Toddlers needed to demonstrate that they could walk.
- “If the doctor suspected a health issue they would mark letters on that person's clothes in chalk: H for heart problems, X for mental illness, CT for trachoma – a highly contagious and much feared eye infection that can lead to blindness.”
- ”Women travelling alone or with children were often viewed as potential burdens to the state.”
- 20% of immigrants were detained on Ellis Island.
- Families were often separated.
- During WWII, when immigration decreased, 7,000 Italian, German and Japanese nationals were held on the island.
- US soldiers were treated in the Ellis Island hospital
Those who passed the medical exam proceeded to a legal screening. Inspectors would check their tags and quiz them, often with the help of an interpreter, about everything from their eye colour and who paid for their passage to whether they were literate and whether they had ever been held in a mental health institution. Most people were processed quickly and went through Ellis Island within a few hours. But if a migrant's answers didn't match the ones on the ship's manifest, or if the inspectors were suspicious about them for some reason, their name was marked with an X and they were detained.
-snip-
Detainees would sleep in triple-tiered bunk beds in dormitory rooms on the building's third floor, receiving three meals a day until their cases could be resolved. Sometimes this could mean an overnight stay, sometimes it could be weeks or months.
Following World War One, the US Congress enacted sweeping laws based on race and nationality which restricted who could come into the country. The Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 were designed to cap annual immigration, imposing strict quotas that favoured people from northern and western European countries.
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