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Thursday, April 29, 2010

The History of Ellis Island

Last Friday Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law an immigration bill which would crack down on illegals being in the state. The last few decades there has been a great lack of border security in our northern and southern borders. That's why we have so many issues with drug cartels, crime waves, diseases, etc. However, there was a time in American history that anyone who desired to immigrate to America had to come through Ellis Island. What is Ellis Island? Ellis Island is in New York Harbor. It was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the site of the nation's busiest immigration station from 1892 to 1954. Prior to Ellis Island the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Ellis Island is located in Upper New York Bay in Jersey City, New Jersey, east of Liberty State Park and north of Liberty Island. Originally much of the west shore of Upper New York Bay consisted of large tidal flats which hosted oyster banks, a major source of food for the Lenape population who lived in the area prior to the arrival of the Dutch settlers. There were several islands which weren't completely submerged at high tide. Three of them (which were later to be known as Liberty, Black Tom and Ellis) were given the name Oyster Islands by the settlers of New Netherland, the first European colony in the Mid-Atlantic States. The oyster beds would remain a major source of food for nearly three centuries. During the Colonial period Little Oyster Island was known as Drye's, then Bucking. In the 1760's, after some pirates were hanged from one of the islands scrubby trees, it became known as Gibbet Island. It was acquired by Samuel Ellis, a colonial New Yorker, around the time of the American Revolution. In 1785 he unsuccessfully attempted to sell the island. From 1808 to 1814 it was a federal arsenal. At the end of the War of 1812, Fort Gibson was and remained a military post for nearly 80 years. then it was later selected to be a federal immigration station.

The federal immigration station opened on January 1, 1892 and closed on November 12, 1954, with 12 million immigrants processed there by the US Bureau of Immigration. After the Immigration Act of 1924 greatly restricted immigration and allowed processing at overseas embassies, the only immigrants to pass through the station were displaced persons or war refugees. Today over one million Americans can trace their ancestry to the immigrants who first arrived at Ellis Island. In the 35 years before Ellis Island opened, over 8 million immigrants had been processed by New York State officials at Castle Garden Immigration Depot in lower Manhattan, just across the bay. It is estimated that 10.5 million immigrants departed for points across the United States from the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal across a narrow strait. Others would have used one of the other terminals along the North River (Hudson River) at that time. The peak year for immigration at Ellis Island was 1907, with 1,004,756 immigrants processed. The all-time daily high occurred on April 17, 1907 when 11,747 immigrants arrived. Writer Louis Adamic came to America from Slovenia in Southeastern Europe in 1913 and described the night he and many other immmigrants slept on bunk beds in a huge hall. Lacking a warm blanket, the young man "shivered, sleepless, all night, listening to snores" and dreams "in perhaps a dozen different languages." The facility was so large that the dining room could seat 1000 people.

Generally those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. Arrivals were asked 29 questions which included name, occupation, and the amount of money carried with them. Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. More than three thousand would-be immigrants died on Ellis Island while being held in the hospital facilities. Some unskilled workers were rejected because they were considered "likely to become a public charge." About 2% were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as having a chronic contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity. It's totally different compared to today. Ellis Island was sometimes known as "The Island of Tears" or "Heartbreak Island" because of those 2% who were not admitted after the long transatlantic voyage. The Kissing Post is a wooden column outside the Registry Room, where new arrivals were greeted by their relatives and friends, with tears, hugs, and kisses.

After the 1924 Immigration Act was passed Ellis Island became primarily a detention and deportation processing center. During and immediately following World War II Ellis Island was used to intern German merchant mariners and enemy aliens--American civilians or immigrants detained for fear of spying, sabotage, etc. Some 7,000 Germans, Italians, and Japanese would be detained at Ellis Island. It was also a processing center for returning sick or wounded U.S. soldiers, and a Coast Guard training base. Ellis Island still managed to process tends of thousands of immigrants a year during this time, but many fewer than hundreds of thousands a year who arrived before the war. After the war ended immigration rapidly returned to earlier levels. Notable entertainers who performed for detained aliens and for U.S. and allied servicemen at the island included Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Enrico Caruso, Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope, and Lionel Hampton and his orchestra.

Before Ted Kennedy pushed for a bill that destroyed immigration barriers in 1965, America used to have a sane immigration policy. There were certain periods during U.S. history when we greatly limited U.S. immigration like during times of war for example. Also, anyone that could've brought diseases to America or could've been a spy they would've been sent back home. Until the 1965 immigration bill (The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965) was passed, America accepted only European immigrants into the country. Once immigrants came to America's shores and they were accepted, they were required to learn the English language and speak it fluently. Our elected officials were cautious in the type of immigrants they allowed to come through Ellis Island. America didn't have millions of illegal aliens back then like we do today. America enforced border security back then. In the last few decades, our politicians stopped making border security enforcement a priority and as a result we've had all kinds of illegals in this country. There are some that are in prison that have committed crimes. There have been employers who have hired them for slave wages to work in their businesses. Once again America needs to have another "Ellis Island" which will process immigrants into this country. Today Ellis Island is a museum.

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