On the Trail of the Immigrant

by Edward Alfred Steiner

The meaning of any statistics depends largely upon the meaning of the unit in which the statistics are expressed. It is a common but fallacious assumption that a word used as the name of a statistical unit has precisely the same meaning that it has when used in popular speech. In the present case the word “immigrant” has had and to some degree still has different meanings, which may be called respectively the popular or theoretical meaning and the administrative or statistical meaning, and these two should be carefully distinguished.

In the popular or theoretical sense an immigrant is a person of foreign birth who is crossing the country’s boundary and entering the United States with intent to remain and become an addition to the population of the country. In this sense of the word an alien arrival is an immigrant whether he comes by water or by land, in the steerage or in the cabin, from contiguous or non-contiguous territory, and whether he pays or does not pay the head tax. The essential element is an addition to the population of the country as a result of travel and the word thus covers all additions to the population otherwise than by birth. A person cannot be an immigrant to the United States more than once any more than a person can be born more than once. It is a characteristic of this meaning that it does not alter.

The word immigrant in its administrative or statistical sense is not defined in the Reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, but from that source and from the instructions and other circulars issued by the Bureau the following statements regarding its meaning have been drawn:

1. The administrative or statistical meaning of immigrant is not fixed by statute law but is determined by the definitions or explanations of the Bureau of Immigration and those are dependent upon and vary with the law and administrative decisions.

2. In the latest circular of the Bureau immigrants are defined as “arriving aliens whose last permanent residence was in a country other than the United States who intend to reside in the United States.” This definition seems to agree closely with the popular or theoretical one.

3. But the foregoing definition is modified by a subsequent paragraph of the same circular which excludes from the immigrant class “citizens of British North America and Mexico coming direct therefrom by sea or rail.” So the official definition is substantially this: An alien neither a resident of the United States nor a citizen of British North America, Cuba or Mexico, who arrives in the United States intending to reside there.

4. The only important difference between these two definitions is that the statistical definition excludes, as the popular definition does not, citizens of British North America, Cuba and Mexico. As the natives of Canada and Mexico living in the United States in 1900 were 14.2 per cent. of the natives of all other foreign countries, it seems likely that the figures of immigration for the year 1905-06 should be increased about 14.2 per cent. in order to get an approximate estimate of the total immigration into the country during the year just ended.

5. Perhaps the most important difference between the popular or theoretical and the statistical definition of immigrant is that the former is unchanging and the latter has been modified several times by changes of law or by modifications of administrative interpretation.

6. Until January 1, 1906, an alien arrival was counted as an immigrant each time he entered the country, but since that date an alien who has acquired a residence in the United States and is returning from a visit abroad is not classed as an immigrant. This administrative change has brought the statistical and the popular meanings of immigrant into closer agreement, but in so doing has reduced the apparent number of immigrants more than ten per cent. and has made it difficult to compare the earlier and the later statistics.

7. Until January 1, 1903, an alien arriving in the first or second cabin was not classed as an immigrant, but rather under the head of other alien passengers. This change likewise brought the two meanings of immigrant into closer agreement, but also made it difficult to compare the figures before and after that date. By a mere change of administrative definition the reported number of immigrants was increased nearly twelve per cent.