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pines were held in custody at the Angel Island Immigration Station, San Francisco, and a few others were held at Philadelphia and New Orleans. These have now been released, chiefly on parole.

During the continuance of the war, the immigration officials throughout the country were able to lend valuable assistance in the enforcement of the espionage, trading with the enemy, and sabotage laws, through the conduct of investigations and cooperation in other ways with the officers of the other departments. Another important and arduous duty undertaken during the war period was that of preventing the departure from the country over the land boundaries of men of military age not in possession of proper permits from the draft boards having jurisdiction of their cases. On the Mexican border 639 arrests of this class of offenders took place, and investigations were made in the cases of nearly 2,000 persons suspected of being deserters from the Army or evaders of the selective service law, and a corresponding amount of work was performed on the Canadian boundary in this connection. The officers of the customs service participated in the examination of outgoing passengers for this purpose. Until September 15, the crews of outbound neutral vessels were also examined by our officers at the seaports with the same end in view. On that date this particular work was, under the new travelcontrol regulations, transferred to the customs service.

These examinations also prevented the unauthorized departure of enemy aliens and other suspected persons.

The bureau has received an expression of appreciation from the Provost Marshal General's office for the assistance rendered in thus preventing violations of law.

ADMISSIONS AND REJECTIONS.

The effect of the suspension of hostilities following the signing of the armistice on November 11, last is reflected in an increase of immigration to the United States, the total of admissions for the past year having been 141,132 immigrant aliens, or 30,514 more than last year's total of 110,618. During the fiscal year 1917, 295,403 immigrant aliens were admitted, 298,826 in 1916, and 326,700 in 1915, or a yearly average for the five years during which the war was in progress of 234,535. It will be remembered in this connection that for 10 years previous to the World War (1904-1914) the corresponding annual average was 1,012,194 immigrant aliens admitted.

To facilitate comparison with the data contained in previous reports of the bureau, the statistics of admissions and rejections are briefly summarized as follows:

In the last fiscal year 141,132 aliens entered this country, 30,514 more than in 1918, these figures, as well as those in the preceding paragraph, referring to immigrant aliens solely (i. e., those coming here for permanent residence). In addition, there were admitted 95,889 nonimmigrant aliens, from which it will be seen that a total of 237,021 aliens were allowed to enter. During the period covered by this report, 123,522 emigrant and 92,709 nonemigrant aliens left the United States, a total of 216,231. The net increase in population due to immigration was, therefore, 20,790, as against 18,585 in the fiscal year 1918, 216,498 in 1917, 125,941 in 1916, and 50,070 in 1915. In the 12 months preceding the outbreak of the war in Europe the corresponding increase in our population was 769,276.

During the past year 8,626 aliens were found to be subject to the excluding provisions of the law and were accordingly refused admission, either by the inspectors at ports of entry or by the department on appeal, these representing 3.5 per cent of the number applying for entry. In 1918, 2.3 per cent (7,297) were rejected; 4.2 per cent (16,028) in 1917; 4.9 per cent (18,867) in 1916; 5.3 per cent (24,111) in 1915; and 2.3 per cent (33,041) in 1914.

Twenty-three per cent of the rejections during the past year were due to the new statutory causes included in the act of February 5, 1917, among this number being included 1,455 illiterate aliens, 464 stowaways, and 19 natives of the barred Asiatic zone. There were also excluded 40 enemy aliens.

ILLITERATE ALIENS.

During the year 1,455 aliens unable to read were excluded at ports of entry and 466 expelled from the country on warrants. Owing to the extremely small transoceanic immigration, the so-called illiteracy test has never as yet been given a full opportunity to show the benefits anticipated at the time of its adoption as a part of our immigration law. It has found the greater part of its application on the land boundaries, where special and peculiar conditions exist, and where, undoubtedly, individual hardships have resulted in numerous cases, as will be noted by the report of the commissioner at Montreal, Appendix VI.

The exceptions made to the illiteracy test (as a war measure) in favor of laborers coming from Mexico have so modified conditions on the southern border that a fair estimate can hardly be made as to what the effect of the test would have been there under normal conditions. As a general proposition, however, while regretting the imposition of personal hardship on otherwise deserving individual aliens, the bureau is convinced that this provision of law is essentially a good one, and believes that the beneficial results of its application will be increasingly realized as the tide of immigration returns to normal proportions. It also believes that when the illiteracy test has been longer in operation the individual cases of hardship referred to will be reduced in number. The incidental effects of stimulating education in other countries, and deterring illiterate aliens from embarking on the journey here, should not be overlooked. The bureau has now under consideration the matter of the revision of the illiteracy-test cards used in the examination of arriving aliens, a number of valuable suggestions having been received from the field officers in this regard.

DEFECTIVE ALIENS.

One of the fundamental principles upon which our immigration legislation is based is that it is the duty of the Government to prevent so far as possible any increase through immigration of the number of persons resident in this country who are below a fair normal standdard, whether physically, mentally, or morally. It is such persons who fill penal, reformatory, and eleemosynary institutions, at heavy cost to the taxpayers, and through natural increase deteriorate the quality of our future citizenship. Conceding that education and improved conditions of living and environment will do much, in the course of time, toward remedying these conditions among our

native population, the bureau has always taken the position that so far as subnormal aliens are concerned the best-and in the end the most humane-measures are preventive ones; and accordingly it regards the effective enforcement of the law providing for exclusion and expulsion of such aliens as perhaps the most important of the trusts committed to it.

In the course of the last fiscal year 11,694 aliens below the standard set by law were returned to the countries whence they came. Of these, 8,626 were debarred when applying for admission, and 3,068 were arrested and deported. Of the debarred, 151 were found to have grave mental defects, 388 grave physical defects, 334 physical defects of a character to affect ability to earn a living, and 9 mental defects other than those specifically named in the law. In addition to these, 400 morally defective aliens were refused admission. Of the 3.068 who were deported following departmental warrant proceedings, 115 were physically, 158 mentally, and 590 morally defective. (See Tables XVII and XVIII, Appendix I.)

In the fiscal year 1918, 1,973 defective aliens were returned to the countries whence they came, 1,384 having been debarred at the ports and 589 arrested and expelled. Of the former, 486 had grave physical defects, 167 grave mental defects, 305 had physical defects affecting ability to earn a living, 10 had mental defects not of the most serious character, and 408 were morally defective. Of those arrested and expelled in 1918, 43 were of the defective class physically, 110 mentally, and 436 morally. In 1914, the last year of large immigration, the number of defective aliens returned to country of origin was 14,582 (12,494 debarred and 2,088 arrested and deported).

The 1,272 refused admission at ports of entry in the past year on grounds of physical, mental, or moral defectiveness represent about 15 per cent of the total rejections, as compared with 18 per cent in 1918, and 38 per cent in 1914. The 863 arrested and expelled on similar grounds constitute 28 per cent of the total expulsions in the last fiscal year compared with 37 per cent in 1918 and 45 per cent in 1914. The reason for these reduced percentages as compared with prewar times is doubtless to be found in the fact that but a small part of our immigration in the last two years has come from transoceanic countries, and also, it may be, to the fact that the artificially stimulated immigration of former years has now ceased.

The 151 aliens debarred in the year just closed on account of serious mental defects were classified as follows: Idiots, 1; imbeciles, 7; insane, 48; epileptics, 19; feeble-minded, 29; chronic alcoholics, 10; persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority, 37. In the year preceding, 167 aliens similarly afflicted were refused admission, consisting of 4 idiots, 5 imbeciles, 64 insane persons, 31 epileptics, 19 feeble-minded, 24 chronic alcoholics, and 20 certified for psychopathic inferiority, the two last named being new classes excluded by the provisions of the immigration act of 1917.

In addition to the above number debarred on account of serious mental defects in the past year, 154 of the same class were arrested and expelled, of whom 14 were found to have been mentally afflicted at the time of their entry (7 insane, 5 epileptics, and 2 feeble-minded), while the remainder had become charges by reason of insanity or other mental defects not affirmatively shown to have been due to causes arising subsequent to the aliens' entry. In 1918, 106 men

tally defective aliens were expelled on warrant proceedings, consisting of 17 who were defective at time of entry, and 89 who subsequently became public charges because of mental defects.

The very important work of enforcing the sections of the immigration law dealing with morally defective aliens has always been of special concern to the bureau, and it is believed that the work accomplished during the year in this direction has not fallen below the standard of previous years. Of the sexually immoral classes, 86 prostitutes and women coming for other immoral purposes, 46 procurers or importers of prostitutes or immoral women, 261 criminals, 2 polygamists, and 2 anarchists were excluded at ports of entry; and 229 immoral women, 99 procurers, 26 persons supported by the proceeds of prostitution, 24 aliens found here after having been previously deported as prostitutes or connected with the business of prostitution, 175 criminals, and 37 anarchists were deported after being found illegally in this country-a total of 887, of whom 510 were sexually immoral, 336 criminals, 2 polygamists, and 39 anarchists. In the preceding fiscal year, 852 morally defective aliens were either excluded or expelled, consisting of 626 immoral persons, 217 criminals, 4 polygamists, and 5 anarchists.

Enforcement of the law as regards aliens engaged in the commercialization of females for immoral purposes is always attended with more or less difficulty, as such offenders are, as a rule, possessed of sufficient financial and other influence to resist to the utmost paying the penalty for their crimes. As above shown, the bureau has succeeded in deporting 378 aliens of this class, while at the instance of its officers 66 criminal prosecutions have been instituted, in 47 of which cases convictions have been secured and fines or prison sentences imposed.

The subject of alien anarchists and the work accomplished under the act of October 16, 1918, is treated elsewhere in this report (see p. 32). At the conclusion of the fiscal year 1918 there were 3,923 aliens in the country whose deportation had been ordered since the beginning of the war in Europe, but who, owing to the danger of sea travel and disturbed conditions in all the European countries, were as a matter of humanity permitted to remain here under bond, personal recognizance or other guaranty until deportation could safely be effected. Since the cessation of hostilities the resumption of deportations to the allied, and some of the neutral, countries has become possible, and the above total has now been reduced to approximately 3,500. Table XVIII-A (Appendix I) shows the number of aliens with respect to whom orders of deportation made during the year could not be carried out, a total of 637, compared with 1,045 for last year; in 1917 the corresponding total was 694; for 1916, 856; and for 1915, 1,328; making a grand total for the five years of 4,560. The number of such cases for 1919 includes 182 who were members of the excluded classes at time of entry, 321 who became public charges from causes not shown to have arisen subsequent to entry, 3 who entered without inspection, and 131 of the immoral and criminal classes. Detailed classifications for the four preceding years will be found at page 26 of the bureau's report for 1918, and it is unnecessary to repeat the figures here.

At the beginning of the fiscal year the bureau, with the approval of the department, adopted the amendment to the immigration

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regulations now known as rule 17-A, under the terms of which the bureau is enabled to release from custody aliens whose deportation can not immediately be effected, who are unable to furnish bonds, or in whose cases it is desirable to allow a probationary period to enable the alien to demonstrate his fitness to remain in this country. Under this plan the alien remains under the supervision of the immigration officers, a percentage of his earnings being deposited in the postal savings bank at regular intervals, which is paid to him, with the accrued interest, when his case is closed by final release or deportation, as circumstances may require. During the year the department has directed that the operation of the rule be extended to 154 aliens.

ALIENS SUBJECT TO EXCLUSION OR DEPORTATION ON ECONOMIC GROUNDS.

Each year the most numerous class of excluded and expelled aliens is that designated in the law as "persons likely to become a public charge." These, with paupers, professional beggars, vagrants, induced and assisted aliens and contract laborers, constitute the classes regarded by law as ineligible for residence in this country, on economic grounds, either as being themselves nonproducers or as (in the case of contract laborers and induced or assisted immigrants) tending to interfere with normal conditions of employment among our resident population.

Within the past year 3,994 aliens (about 46 per cent of all rejections) were excluded as likely to become a public charge, in some instances, because of poor financial condition or physical disqualifications rendering it probable that they would become objects of public charity, and in others because of evidence showing possession of tendencies likely to bring them into conflict with our criminal laws. During the same period there were expelled 257 aliens who had actually become public charges in various institutions supported by taxation, and 1,150 others who were found to have been at the time of their entry persons likely to become such charges, a total of 1,307. (Table XVIII, Appendix I.) For the previous year, the corresponding figures were: Debarred, 2,810 (31 per cent of rejections); expelled, 538, divided into 137 public charges and 401 likely to become so at time of entry, making a total of 3,349. The figures on this subject for 1917 were: Debarred, 7,871 (49 per cent of those rejected); expelled, 894 (176 public charges and 718 likely at time of entry to become public charges); total, 8,765.

A total of 11 professional beggars, paupers, and vagrants also were excluded at the ports, and five of the same classes were expelled under warrant proceedings. There were 774 alien contract laborers excluded and 69 expelled in the course of the year, compared with 474 excluded and 62 expelled in 1918; in 1917, the corresponding figures were 1,116 and 62; and in 1916, 2,080 and 116 respectively. Prosecutions and civil suits for violations of the contract-labor law on the part of importers in this country were instituted in 3 cases.

The special arrangement with Canada under which skilled and technical employees were reciprocally exchanged during the war period was terminated by mutual consent shortly after the signing of the armistice, having served its purpose satisfactorily as long as the necessity existed.

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