APPENDIX B
Table of Acts of Congress Concerning Immigration
1862. Act of February 19, prohibiting building, equipping, loading, or preparing any vessel licensed, enrolled or registered in the United States for procuring coolies from any Oriental country to be held for service or labor.
1875. Act of March 3, providing that any person contracting or attempting to contract to supply coolie labor to another be guilty of felony. Excluding convicts, and women imported for immoral purposes, making this traffic felony.
1882. General Immigration Act of August 3; enlarging excluded list and establishing head tax.
1885. Contract Labor Act of February 26, to prevent importation of labor under the padrone or other similar system.
1891. Act of March 3, which codified and strengthened the previous statutes. Excluded classes increased; encouraging of contract labor to emigrate by advertisements forbidden; scope of Immigration Bureau enlarged by establishing office of Superintendent of Immigration (now Commissioner-General), providing for return of debarred aliens, and making decision of immigration officers as to landing or debarment final.
1893. Act of March 3; requiring manifests and their verification; providing boards of special inquiry; and compelling steamship companies to post in the offices of their agents copies of the United States immigration laws, and to call the attention of purchasers of tickets to them.
1894. Act of August 18; making the decision of the appropriate immigration officials final as to admission of aliens, unless reversed by the Secretary of the Treasury on appeal.
1903. Immigration Restriction Act of March 3. (For its main provisions see p. 70 of this book, footnote 23.)
The Principal Excluded Classes
(1) Idiots; (2) insane persons; (3) epileptics; (4) prostitutes; (5) paupers; (6) persons likely to become public charge; (7) professional beggars; (8) persons afflicted with a loathsome or contagious disease; (9) persons who have been convicted of a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, not including those convicted of purely political offences; (10) polygamists; (11) anarchists (or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of all government or forms of laws, or the assassination of public officials); (12) those deported within a year from date of application for admission as being under offers, solicitation, promises or agreements to perform labor or service of some kind therein; (13) any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another, or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is shown that such person does not belong to one of the excluded classes; but any person in the United States may send for a relative or friend without thereby putting the burden of this proof upon the immigrant.
Crimes Under the Act of 1903
In order to enforce these provisions twelve violations were made crimes, with penalties of both fine and imprisonment: (1) Importing any person for immoral purposes; (2) prepaying the transportation or encouraging the migration of aliens under any offer, solicitation, promise or agreement, parol or special, expressed or implied, made previous to the importation of aliens, to perform labor in the United States; (3) encouraging the migration of aliens by promise of employment through advertisements in foreign countries; (4) encouraging immigration on the part of owners of vessels and transportation companies by any means other than communications giving the sailing of vessels and terms of transportation; (5) bringing in or attempting to bring in any alien not duly admitted by an immigrant inspector or not lawfully entitled to enter the United States; (6) bringing in by any person other than railway lines of any person afflicted with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; (7) allowing an alien to land from a vessel at any other time and place than that designated by the immigration officer; (8) refusing or neglecting to return rejected aliens to the port from which they came or to pay their maintenance while on land; (9) refusing or neglecting to return aliens arrested within three years after entry as being unlawfully in the United States; (10) knowingly or willfully giving false testimony or swearing to any false statement affecting the right of an alien to land is made perjury; (11) assisting any anarchist to enter the United States, or conspiring to allow, procure or permit any such person to enter; (12) failing to deliver manifests.
Laws to Protect the Immigrant
Act of 1819, providing that a vessel should not carry more than two passengers for every five tons, and that a specified quantity of certain provisions should be carried for every passenger; requiring the master to deliver sworn manifests showing age, sex, occupation, nativity, and destination of passengers.
Act of 1855, limited number to one for every two tons, and provided that each passenger on main and poop decks should have sixteen feet of floor space, and on lower decks eighteen feet.
Act of 1882, providing that in a steamship the unobstructed spaces shall be sufficient to allow one hundred cubic feet per passenger on main and next deck, and 120 on second deck below main deck, and forbidding carrying of passengers on any other decks, or in any space having vertical height less than six feet; other provisions regulate the occupancy of berths, light and air, ventilation, toilet rooms, food, and hospital facilities. Explosives and other dangerous articles are not to be carried, nor animals with or below passengers. Lists of passengers are to be delivered to the boarding officer of customs.
Act of 1884, provision that no keeper of a sailors' boarding house or hotel, and no runner or person interested in one, could board an incoming vessel until after it reached its dock. This to protect aliens from imposition and knavery.
Legislation Recommended in 1905 by the Commissioner-General of Immigration
1. In regard to diseased aliens: that competent medical officers be located at the principal ports of embarkation; that all aliens seeking passage secure as a prerequisite from such officer a certificate of good health, mental and physical; and that the bringing of any alien unprovided with such certificate shall subject the vessel by which he is brought to summary fine. 2. That the penalty of $100 now prescribed for carrying diseased persons be increased to $500, as a means of making the transportation lines more careful. 3. Such further legislation as will enable the government to punish those who induce aliens to come to this country under promise or assurance of employment. Less exacting rules of evidence and a summary mode of trial are needed to make the law effective. 4. That Congress provide means for distributing arriving aliens who now congregate in the large cities. 5. That as a means of those incapable of self-support through age or feebleness; those who have not brought sufficient money to maintain them for a reasonable time in event of sickness or lack of employment. 6. That adequate means be adopted, enforced by sufficient penalties, to compel steamship companies to observe in good faith the law which forbids them to encourage or solicit immigration. If other means fail, a limitation apportioning the number of passengers in direct ratio to tonnage is suggested. 7. That masters of vessels be required to furnish manifests of outgoing aliens, similar to those of arriving aliens, so that the net annual increase of alien population may be ascertained.
In addition two special recommendations are made, with view to control immigration and lessen the hardships of the debarred: (1) To enlighten aliens as to the provisions of our laws, so that they may not in ignorance sever their home ties and sacrifice their small possessions in an ineffectual attempt to enter the United States. To this end the laws and regulations should be translated into the various tongues and distributed widely. This might not prevail as against the influence and promises of transportation agents, but it would relieve this country of responsibility for needless distress and suffering. (2) An international conference of immigration experts.