# When did federal government regulation of immigration begin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 5, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712 "2019-09-05T00:02:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712/21 "2019-09-05T20:23:58Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > There was certainly at least a health inspection at Ellis Island and presumably other ports of entry. The Ellis Island facility opened in 1892. Enforcement of immigration laws became a strictly federal responsibility in 1890. As others noted there were federal laws back to 1790 on naturalization, and federal immigration restrictions by country of origin (China) prior to 1890 but the whole system became federal only then. In NY from 1890 to 1892 the federal govt ran an immigration center in what’s now Battery Park. From 1855 to 1890 the State and City of NY jointly ran Castle Clinton, now also in that park (aka ‘The Battery’, a coast defense battery finished in 1811, at that time offshore, then an entertainment center from 1823-1854), as an immigrant processing center. From 1820-1855 captains of ships arriving at NY had to file manifests naming the immigrants on board but the people themselves didn’t have to go through any processing. Before that no official records were kept of arrivals. That’s just NY, but NY accounted for around 2/3’s of immigrant arrivals to the US in the relevant period. [http://www.castlegarden.org/](http://www.castlegarden.org/) > **[History & Culture - Castle Clinton National Monument (U.S. National Park...](https://www.nps.gov/cacl/learn/historyculture/index.htm)** ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712/22 "2019-09-05T20:38:10Z")
> [@Ponderoid](#): > > I was surprised to hear that, so I did a quick google around. And I discovered that it wasn’t “any citizen”, it was “any female citizen”. Which of course was a result of the deplorable attitude that a woman was her husband’s property. Until the [Cable Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_Act) (Married Women’s Independent Nationality Act) in 1922, a married woman in the US had her husband’s citizenship, and only his. If he became a US citizen, so did she, automatically by process of law. If he wasn’t a citizen, then neither was she, even if she had been born in the US to US citizen parents. That meant that US-born wives of German and Austrian nationals were required to register as enemy aliens during the First World War, for example. The Cable Act allowed her to retain her US citizenship **IF** she married a man who was himself eligible to become a citizen. Since Asian men were not eligible, their American-born wives still lost their citizenship. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2019, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712/23 "2019-09-05T22:39:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > . . . This [very snarky site](https://deportnation.com/all-possible-responses-to-they-should-get-in-line-and-do-it-the-right-way-the-way-my-family-did-ab0b7dbcbb26) has a good run-down of the gradations through history. Maybe snarky, but the linked article has really clarified things for me. 1924 seems like a watershed year, with visas then required to enter the US. I also hadn’t really appreciated how the “modern notions of national borders” is just that - modern. Thanks for all your great responses. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712/24 "2019-09-06T00:08:51Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The U.S. made many different regulations and restrictions for different groups at different times. This [very snarky site](https://deportnation.com/all-possible-responses-to-they-should-get-in-line-and-do-it-the-right-way-the-way-my-family-did-ab0b7dbcbb26) has a good run-down of the gradations through history. I question how good their facts are. They wrote, > [@](#): > > If they were Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or from another East Asian country there was no “right way” for them as of 1882. The Chinese Exclusion Act would officially keep those nationalities from immigration and/or gaining citizenship until (on the books at least) 1952. I read the Chinese Exclusion Act. It only talks about Chinese immigrants. There is no mention of Japanese, Korean, or other East Asian immigrants. I’ve read that Japanese and Korean immigration actually increased after 1882 because they were being recruited to replace the prohibited Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![pmwgreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pmwgreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pmwgreen)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2019, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712/25 "2019-09-06T01:26:18Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Maybe snarky, but the linked article has really clarified things for me. 1924 seems like a watershed year, with visas then required to enter the US. > > I also hadn’t really appreciated how the “modern notions of national borders” is just that - modern. > > Thanks for all your great responses. Well, they tried prohibition to get rid of the Irish, Germans and Italians. That didn’t work, so they passed a law to return the USA to the demographic distribution of 1890. Nobody worried about Hispanics though; when the government thought they were a problem, they were just deported. Nobody was “illegal”, but then they were deporting citizens too. And in the 1950’s. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2019, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712/26 "2019-09-06T23:19:38Z")
> [@Ponderoid](#): > > I was surprised to hear that, so I did a quick google around. And I discovered that it wasn’t “any citizen”, it was “any female citizen”. Which of course was a result of the deplorable attitude that a woman was her husband’s property. If I remember correctly, a marriage between an American man and east Asian woman would’ve been prevented by anti-miscegenation laws. It’s mostly a moot point, because there were so few women of east Asian descent in the U.S., and those few would’ve married other east Asians, either by choice or arrangement. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I question how good their facts are. They wrote, > > > [@](#): > > > > If they were Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or from another East Asian country there was no “right way” for them as of 1882. The Chinese Exclusion Act would officially keep those nationalities from immigration and/or gaining citizenship until (on the books at least) 1952. > > I read the Chinese Exclusion Act. It only talks about Chinese immigrants. There is no mention of Japanese, Korean, or other East Asian immigrants. I’ve read that Japanese and Korean immigration actually increased after 1882 because they were being recruited to replace the prohibited Chinese. From my reading (of mostly Korean-American sources), while technically east Asians not from China weren’t affected by the law, in practice they were. The enforcement of the law was based on racism, not nationality. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712/27 "2019-09-07T00:16:51Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > From my reading (of mostly Korean-American sources), while technically east Asians not from China weren’t affected by the law, in practice they were. The enforcement of the law was based on racism, not nationality. In Hawaii, Chinese immigration was replaced by Japanese immigration. Leading to the well-known large Japanese influence on Hawaiian society (half the population in 1920), the support for the Japanese airman after Pearl Harbour, and the resulting internment of Japanese immigrants, nationals and descendants. All pretty clearly the result of the restriction on Chinese labour. It feel the urge to make some comment about restrictions on South American labour, but I’m restraining myself. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712/28 "2019-09-07T15:31:39Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > In Hawaii, Chinese immigration was replaced by Japanese immigration. > > Leading to the well-known large Japanese influence on Hawaiian society (half the population in 1920), the support for the Japanese airman after Pearl Harbour, and the resulting internment of Japanese immigrants, nationals and descendants. > > All pretty clearly the result of the restriction on Chinese labour. Recruitment of Japanese laborers by Hawaiian sugar plantations wasn’t entirely the result of exclusion of Chinese workers since the US exclusion of Chinese immigrants didn’t apply to Hawaii until it became part of the US in 1898 and the ramp up in recruitment from Japan began in the 1880’s. The recruitment of Japanese workers was first enabled by the legalization of emigration from Japan in 1885. Besides which Japanese workers in the beginning worked for less than Chinese workers, and they also countered a perceived threat of a labor monopoly by Chinese workers. Although also the Hawaii plantation owners were generally pro-annexation, and realized that achievement of their goal would eventually exclude Chinese workers. Korean laborers were also recruited to come to Hawaii from 1903, for partly similar reasons to why Japanese laborers had been: cost and perceived threat of monopoly. There were significant strikes and other labor actions by Japanese sugar plantation workers in Hawaii by the early 1900’s. The great majority of Korean workers came between 1903 and 1905, by which time Korean workers were about equally numerous with the remaining Chinese workers (~10% each) on the Hawaiian sugar plantations, though around 2/3’s of the workers were from Japan. After 1905 and the Protectorate Treaty between Japan and Korea (followed by outright annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910) Korea immigration to the US fell off sharply. And from 1907 US immigration law prohibited importation of contract workers, and there was also an informal US-Japanese agreement at the time to stem emigration from Japan to the US, before immigration from Asia (except the Philippines to some degree) was basically cut off by the National Origins Act of 1924. Contract plantation workers in Hawaii of all nationalities often moved to the West Coast on completion of their contracts, though some also came there directly. Japanese Americans on the West Coast were nearly as numerous as in Hawaii by 1940\*. Some Korean Americans also moved to the West Coast from Hawaii and a very small number (100’s) came direct to the West Coast prior to 1924. For example in Korean aviation history the short lived Willows Korean Aviation School in California is known as the first organization to train Korean pilots, supported by the first Korean American millionaire, Kim Chong Lim. > **[Willows Korean Aviation School](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willows_Korean_Aviation_School)** > > Willows Korean Aviation School (Korean: 대한인비행가양성소) was an aviation school meant to train fighter pilots for the Korean Independence Movement, many of whom were members of the Korean National Association. It was established on February 20, 1920 in Glenn County, California, by Korean-Americans and backed by the Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai. It was disestablished in April 1921. > The choice for a Korean Aviation School to be established in California was for multiple reasons including th... After the abolition of race based exclusion in 1952 till 1964 a still small but larger number of Koreans immigrated to the US, mainly wives of US servicemen. But 95%+ of Americans of Korean descent now are either immigrants or descendants of people who immigrated after the major liberalization of US immigration laws in 1965, which is in contrast to Japanese Americans a large % of whom trace their ancestry to pre-1924 immigrants. Paper on the 1903-05 burst of Korean immigration to Hawaii [https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=5743&context=gradschool\_disstheses](https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=5743&context=gradschool_disstheses) \*see comparative numbers by state, p 17 of first one with demographics of Hawaii, p 6 of second one > **[POP-twps0056.pdf](https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/2002/demo/POP-twps0056.pdf)** > > 2.45 MB [https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/528/2/JL11174.pdf](https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/528/2/JL11174.pdf) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-federal-government-regulation-of-immigration-begin/839712.md?page=1)