Ellis Island “Feet People” Exhibit Blasts Militarizing Mexican Border, Deportations

There were people forbidden to come to the U.S. and there were smugglers of illegals, this was in the 1800s, so there were illegal immigrants.

I’m glad you and your son saw it before 0bama tainted it as well as our nation.

I had the chance in the late 50’s and may have taken basically the same ferry tour of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. It was a great experience and left a lasting impression on me.

Yes, there were people forbidden to come to the US. For most of our history, prostitutes and others of low moral character were forbidden. For a while Chinese were specifically forbidden. At various times criminals were forbidden...which meant they went to Australia rather than the US and look how that turned out.

The point is that pre late 1920s ordinary people crossed from our land borders legally with no law that said they couldn’t. After coming to the new world my ancestors crossed the land border repeatedly living in 1 country, then the other, with not much more concern than moving from state to state. I have aunts born on each side of the border and some aren’t certain which country they were born in.

The same is true accross the ocean. Millions of people immigrated, not to Ellis Is. But to Boston, Philly, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, New Orleans, Houston and most every seaport, large and small. Many immigrants were associated with a religious group and came to some small port with connections to the relgious group.

Many immigrants were associated with a corporate group that expected re-payment of the loan to pay for the voyage. Those corporate groups were indentured (or pick your phrase) to labor agencies much as IT consultants from India are today.

Every immigrant was innocent til proven guilty. There are stories of non-Chinese Asians who were accused of being Chinese. They proved they were not in the group named by law and won their cases. A prostitute, thief, etc was innocent til proven guilty.

There are many stories of people whose behavior in the old world would exclude them from the US. But they changed their behvavior (found Jesus, etc) and thus were not seen as violating immigration laws. Of course, there were immigrants who did violate immigration laws and were deported.

When I came to Chicago in the early 60s the Chicago police on a regular basis deported undesireables. The drunk and disorderly would mouth off to the police and be on the next bus to the border.

A big mistake was when Nixon’s DOJ and INS took power away from the local police and centralized it in the INS. At least in IL, that marks a major shift in the behavior of immigrants and the problems they do or don’t bring to the US.

You say a lot of stuff, but it is all just a narrative of your own.

I need more than that, as it is, I have no idea what you are trying to say.

I should have added. that part of your narrative is being loose with the facts, what is it that you are trying to create?

Actually, the caps were much stricter prior to 1965, and said caps were implemented back in the 1920s.