Immigration: Historically a challenge for the United States
September 2, 10:14 AM
San Diego Immigration Policy Examiner
Carl Braun

7 comments

Illegal Immigration in the United States is definitely not a recent phenomenon. People from all walks have life and from every corner of the globe have trampled these borders and existing laws for more than one hundred years. In the late nineteenth century the Chinese and the Irish emigrated here in massive numbers, many illegally through Mexico, to work on the railroads and in the gold mines. Our government turned a blind eye to them then as well so as to satisfy the big business labor needs of what became known as the Industrial Revolution. Then as now, we reached a breaking point and the government would crack down on illegal human traffic, only to relax the enforcement levels a decade or two later when economies turned around and business once again required cheap labor.

The Border Patrol was not even created until 1924 though the Immigration Service began hiring independent border guards to ride the territory starting in 1904. Justice was meted out a little differently then. The primary goal was to prevent Chinese Illegal Immigration and halt the flow of contraband in to the US.

Whether coming through San Francisco, New Orleans, New York or any of the major ports legal immigrants came in great numbers as well. Prior to 1882, some 127 years ago, there were no restrictions. Immigrants simply arrived and went about their business. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 contained in it provisions which applied to all immigrants requiring a perfunctory health examination and a screening to prevent “lunatics, idiots and convictsâ€