enforcement of which the Bureau of Immigration is charged. One may with safety go further and say that immigration legislation, though promising most salutary results, must become practically valueless unless the personnel of the service is made what it should be.

When the present law was a subject for congressional consideration it was conceded by every person giving the enactment serious thought, that its numerous new, restrictive, and clearly beneficial features could not possibly be made effective without substantial increase in the number of help employed and without the exercise of such care in the selection of additional help as would result in securing appointees properly qualified to participate in the important work in which we are engaged.

It has been a matter of much regret that funds have constantly been insufficient to permit of that reorganization of the bureau's inspection force in this district, which in the writer's opinion is absolutely essential to proper enforcement of the present immigration act. Instead of an improvement in the personnel of the staff, no one can gainsay the fact that it has progressed only in the direction of deterioration. Many of our very best inspectors have left the bureau's employ to take positions with private enterprises paying much more attractive salaries; many other experienced inspectors are so advanced in years that we find them constantly appealing for transfer to lighter work; and when new appointments are made from the eligible register, it is only rarely that the appointee chosen possesses anything like the fitness that officers should display in taking up the difficult task of properly enforcing the present immigration law.

Instead of an already overworked personnel being given assistance, when the new law went into effect the inadequate force employed found themselves the recipients of the additional burdens of enforcing the passport regulations, the regulations pertaining to the hostile alien class, and the regulations promulgated by the provost marshal general for the control of males who were subject to the draft laws. With these added, and all too numerous important duties thrust upon them, and with the continued long hours of duty, and constantly working a seven-day week, perfect enforcement of the present immigration law by our officers has simply been impossible, and constant retrogression in the personnel of our official staff occasions no surprise amongst those identified with the bureau's service who are familiar with the situation which I have described above.

There is unmistakable insistence from every quarter that our immigration law should be more strictly enforced, and there is a demand for such new legislation as will guarantee the exclusion and expulsion of that alien element whose political views are shown to be inimical to the preservation and well-being of our own institutions.

The laws now operative, and all the new measures that may be enacted as a guard against the influx of undesirable aliens, must very largely fail of their object, however, unless the personnel of the staff charged with the duty of enforcing such measures is reorganized and strengthened. The examination of aliens under the terms of the present act requires time, patience, tact, sound judgment, keen intelligence, and unquestioned physical fitness. Our present method of appointing inspectors gives no guaranty that appointees will display any of these qualities. In fact, time and again appointees have been found utterly incompetent when tested in the duties which fall to the lot of an immigrant inspector, and in many cases where officers do possess the required qualifications their long hours of duty for seven days a week without recreation or diversion produce that excessive fatigue, and in some instances a semi-invalidism, which renders an officer incapable of contributing the higher character of work of which he is capable under anything like favorable conditions.

Not only is there a crying need for a reorganization of the personnel of the service, but the writer is confident that the bureau must realize that the esprit de corps essential to the more thorough inspection of aliens who seek entry to the United States can never be built up under the anomalous salary schedules which at present obtain throughout the immigration service.

No high-grade and thoroughly efficient officer is at his best when he sees associates who are by no means his equal in capabilities drawing a salary several hundred dollars per annum above what he himself is receiving.

No capable, conscientious officer is at his best when he is allowed to plod for several years without promotion or without information as to future prospects so that he may intelligently plan for himself and family.

At a time when the Nation is crying for deliverance from the anarchist, the Black Hand, the bomb thrower, and the slayer of public officials the immigration service, which now, if ever, should possess a personnel capable of enforcing any laws enacted for the protection of our people, is surely shown to be deteriorating and becoming

more impotent from the work conditions to which endeavor has been made to draw your attention in the foregoing. It seems inconceivable that Congress should devote years to the consideration and enactment of our present immigration law only to withhold funds necessary to make such law effective.

By the $8 per capita tax, incoming aliens are made to contribute the funds necessary to meet the expense incident to their own careful medical and civil examination, and it is difficult to see to what better purpose these funds could be devoted.

The presence of the anarchist and the bomb thrower, and the constant additions to our public institutions of new dependents from the ranks of the aliens would certainly seem to suggest the wisdom of adequate appropriations to the end that the personnel of the immigration service may be made what it should be, and the people of the United States given the benefits of the restrictive features of the immigration law which was enacted for their protection.

CHARACTER AND EXTENT OF COOPERATION WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, THE MILITARY AND NAVAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICES, AND OTHER BRANCHES OF THE GOVERNMENT DEALING WITH WAR ACTIVITIES.

No attempt has been made to preserve an itemized record of the activities of immigration officers in this district as regards their cooperation with officials of the various departments named above in dealing with war activities, but the bureau is assured that there have existed throughout the entire war period the most harmonious relations between the bureau's officers and those representing other departments, and the writer feels certain that the other departments referred to will gladly bear testimony as to the valuable assistance rendered by bureau employees in connection with any war work in which engaged.

ALIEN ENEMIES.

As there has been little or no modification of the rules pertaining to alien enemies since the armistice terms became effective, inspectors in this district are required to maintain the same special vigilance as to aliens of the above class as they have been compelled to exercise since the very commencement of the war. There were large numbers of aliens in Canada who are subjects of countries with which the allies were at war, and while many of those of the more dangerous classes are being deported to the countries whence they came, still there is ample ground for belief that, as soon as peace terms are agreed upon and signed, there will be a decided influx of aliens now classed as "alien enemies" from Canada to the United States, and it may be taken for granted that the bureau's border force will have this element to deal with later on.

Compliance with the travel regulations promulgated by the Department of State, as applied to alien enemies, has entailed an immense amount of clerical work during the period of the war, and as the numerical strength of such help is constantly suffering impairment, should the peace arrangement no longer render such work necessary, the relief afforded will be appreciated.

THE READING TEST REQUIRED BY THE IMMIGRATION ACT OF FEBRUARY 5, 1917.

No other cause for exclusion named in the immigration art is productive of anything like the criticism, disappointment, and mortification constantly manifested by aliens who are refused admission to the United States because of inability to meet the requirements of the reading test.

At no other ports throughout the bureau's entire service will there ever be any likelihood of the application of the reading test meeting such bitter resentment as attends the enforcement of this requirement among alien passengers who seek entry to the United States from Canada.

The average person has little conception of the immensity of the daily passenger movement from Canada to the United States. This travel will aggregate twelve millions of passengers per year.

For generations Canadians have migrated from Canada to our own country and families by the thousands, with branches in both countries, are interlocked by marriage and business ties, the result being that travel between the two countries is continuous, this condition particularly prevailing along the Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick boundaries.

Unfortunately illiteracy is markedly prevalent among certain of the alien classes who wish to make entry from these Provinces, and it will not be difficult for the bureau to approximate the disappointments, hardships, and unhappiness resulting from the enforcement of an immigration measure which curtails almost prohibitively the travel of illiterate aliens between the two countries. Of the total number of aliens debarred in this district during the past year, 2,367 were victims of the reading test. In many

instances, these exclusions dissipated the hopes of whole families who were anticipating settlement in the United States where they had been led to believe more favorable conditions awaited them; and where failure to meet the reading test operates to check the incoming of those no pleasure bent, or whose attempted migration was for visiting or other temporary purpose, the unpopularity of the reading test is easily discernible. Canada having adopted a similar immigration requirement, when applying at the boundary the alien traveler who is illiterate will find little comfort in his incoming or outgoing over the northern border line.

The unprecedently heavy travel with which our officers have been called upon to deal during the past year again prompts the renewal of the suggestion made on numerous previous occasions that some more practicable plan be devised for carrying the reading-test cards now in use.

The writer's views regarding this important matter are incorporated in the last annual report, and with a view to again getting this matter to the bureau's attention, he feels that he can do no better than to quote the following paragraph from that report:

The present method of applying the reading test where officers aboard trains and boats are compelled to make use of the loose cards is unwieldly and most unsatisfactory. As I have previously recommended, the test cards should be arranged in book form, of pocket size, and the matter to be read should require some simple physical act on the part of the alien as an evidence that the applicant had read the card handed him correctly. As a help to our inspectors, this very practicable arrangement would simplify application of this feature of the law, interpreters would seldom be needed where aliens were found admissible in primary inspection, and long delay of passengers, who must now be detained at the border until services of an interpreter can be had, would be largely avoided."

REFUND OF HEAD TAX.

Experiences of another year in the matter of collecting the head tax in respect of aliens admitted to the United States for permanent stay, conclusively attest the wisdom, in every instance where an inspector is in doubt as to the real intent of an applicant, of compelling such passenger to deposit the tax in exchange for the refund certificate Form 569, by use of which certificate recovery of the tax deposited can be quickly arranged when the person to whom the certificate has been issued, can show departure from the United States within the period to entitle him to refund of the tax. During the past year the refund certificates mentioned have been liberally used with the result that large revenues have been saved to the Government of which it must otherwise have been defrauded.

Every alien to whom a certificate Form 569 is issued is, of course, insistent that his intended visit to the United States will be only temporary. The data which we have compiled concerning this matter, however, shows more than 27 per cent of all those claiming entry for temporary sojourn purposes, and to whom the certificate Form 569 was issued, made no claim for refund of the tax, thus showing most convincingly the original object of migration.

It will be a matter of interest to record the fact that practically 89 per cent of the aliens to whom certificates Form 569 were issued under representations that entry to the United States was for a temporary period only, and who made no demand for refund, were citizens of Canada.

The annual report submitted from this office one year ago concluded with the following:

"In closing this report, basing my opinion on experiences already met with. I wish to hazard the prediction that, with the closing of the war, our Government will find itself concerned with immigration problems vastly more serious than any which may have engaged its attention in the past. A half million soldiers will be returning to Canada, many of them wounded or invalided to an extent to render them no longer self-sustaining. Large numbers of these soldiers were formerly citizens of the United States, who will naturally be desirous of returning thereto at once."

Happily the year past has witnessed the termination of the war and the return to Canada of nearly all the Canadian overseas forces. The immigration problems resulting from the war, our dealings with which were predicted in the paragraph above quoted, have appeared in abundance, and it is perfectly safe to prophesy further that for many years to come the records of our Canadian border district may be depended upon to tell the story of the soldier applicant and those dependent upon him, whose difficulty in meeting the requirements of our immigration law and regulations is easily traceable to services rendered as a soldier when the allied flags were in peril.

Regarding citizens of the United States and aliens lawfully resident in this country who enlisted for overseas service with the Canadian army, and in connection with

whose return to the United States strict application of our immigration regulations would have resulted in much hardship to these ex-soldiers, it is gratifying to be able to report that the congressional joint resolution No. 44 provided just the relief needed to facilitate the return to the United States of those gallant, honorably discharged soldiers for whose welfare and comfort the said resolution was enacted and put into effect.

With a view to expediting return of soldiers of the above class to their homes in the United States, our officers have worked in perfect accord with the Canadian military authorities. As soon as discharge certificates were issued, soldiers were subjected to such examination as was necessary to show their right to reentry to the United States under the terms of joint resolution No. 44, and the prompt consideration shown these ex-soldiers by the Government and its officials elicited much praise from these returning soldiers who were so anxious to rejoin their loved ones in the United States. Between the date on which this office received joint resolution No. 44 and the close of the fiscal year, June 30, 1919, 9,168 discharged soldiers were permitted to return to the United States under the terms of the resolution.

No accurate record has been preserved of the large number of discharged soldiers of the class defined in the resolution under discussion, who returned to the United States from Canada subsequent to the outbreak of the war in August, 1914, and prior to the adoption of joint resolution No. 44, but it may be taken for granted that the number was significant, as the soldiers were returning during the entire period of the war.

Commencing with September, 1918, where an ex-soldier's discharge papers indicated a hospital history, record of such experience was taken, and for the 10 months during which record was preserved, approximately 500 of these returned soldiers were shown to have undergone hospital treatment for varying lengths of time for wounds or sickness acquired in line of duty.

The Canadian Government now has under consideration the matter of transportation for the thousands of soldiers' dependents who still remain in England. Many of these unfortunates consist of husbandless wives and fatherless children. Many of these soldiers' dependents have already sought entry to the United States, and as they are invariably cases that pull at the heartstrings, the bureau will appreciate with what difficulty these cases are disposed of by the various boards of special inquiry by which practically all such cases are considered. Patience, gentleness, yet, withal, firmness must characterize the board's deliberations in cases like the above, for while the sympathies of officers are constantly aroused, it will be realized that only the law's requirements can prevail in the end, and naturally many of the decisions rendered invoke criticism and resentment.

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IN RE PRESENT LAW.

On several occasions when Congress had under consideration the passage of new legislation pertaining to immigration, the writer made recommendation that there be inserted in the law some provision whereby aliens who have been debarred or deported and thereafter, without the justification of emergent necessity or otherwise, set the law at defiance by effecting surreptitious entry into the United States be adequately punished.

Canada, whose immigration laws are drafted to a great extent along the lines of our own, has seen the necessity for a provision of this nature, and has made it an offense punishable by fine and imprisonment for aliens to enter unlawfully after they have been debarred or deported from that country. It may be that there is no pressing need for such legislation at the seaports of arrival in the United States, but in this district, and I assume that the same applies with equal force to the Mexican border, where the conditions are totally at variance with those arising at the seaports, it is too obvious to require any extended comment that until there is inserted in our law some provision to take care of the situation, there will ever remain present an incentive to smuggling and an evasion of the law's requirements.

Perhaps this can best be illustrated by the following concrete case:

A native and citizen of Canada was deported from the United States on March 18, 1919, after our service had incurred considerable expense for his detention pending deportation proceedings. This man, who seldom works and is a confirmed drunkard and trouble maker, resides in Canada just across the Vermont boundary and has made himself very obnoxious to citizens residing on the American side of the line, who complain of his presence in the United States. Advices were recently received from officers at Newport, Vt., that immediately after his deportation he reentered the United States and has since continued to enter at will, it being alleged also that he is spending considerable of his time with a woman of doubtful character in Vermont, and this in spite of the fact that our officers have turned him back on innumerable occasions and warned him that unless he desisted from entering. the country he would again be placed under arrest and deported. To all of these

threats he has given not the slightest heed, and, in fact, has defied our officers to go ahead and arrest him, asserting that the only thing they can do to him is to return him to Canada, which, unfortunately, is the only remedy afforded by our law. It is not felt, however, that we are justified in constantly placing upon the service the burden of maintaining this alien merely for the purpose of continuing the more or less farcical procedure of placing him across the boundary, for to effectually debar him from reentry would require a constant guard in that particular district.

This is only one of many cases which could be cited as an illustration of the need for a penalty of some kind, if we hope to render the execution of the law effective in this district, and it is to be hoped that the matter may be placed before Congress in such a light that it will see the necessity for remedial measures.

PASSPORT-PERMIT WORK.

Consideration of applications for passports to provide for foreign travel has formed a very important feature of immigration work as carried on in this district during the past year.

The total number of applicants dealt with was 9,843, disposed of as follows: Number of requests granted, 8,954; number of applications denied, 627; pending, 262.

Naturally, the much larger proportion of the above applicants came from urban centers having a heavy foreign population like Buffalo, Detroit, and Duluth, and with the limited help available for passport work it has frequently been impossible to coneider applications for passports as rapidly as they were received

With the removal of the submarine menace, and the offering of even limited steamship accommodations for eastbound travel, from among the foreign element everywhere within this district have come applications for passports and inquiries as to the requirements to be met by aliens-and in many instances naturalized United States citizens—wishing to proceed to European countries.

It has also been incumbent upon bureau officers in this district, in conjunction with customs inspectors, to question all passengers leaving the United States across the Canadian border, this procedure being necessary to prevent infractions of the passport and alien enemy rules, and while no reliable record has been preserved by way of showing the number of outgoing passengers examined, still the bureau may get a reasonable conception of the magnitude of the task undertaken in the above work when advised that at the one station of Portal, N. Dak., more than 20,000 passengers underwent inspection at the hands of our officers; while at another of the important border ports as many as 87 alien enemies were apprehended within a single week when attempting to leave the United States in violation of the regulations. This exodus to foreign countries shows no signs of abatement, and as travel from Canada to the United States requiring the attention of bureau officers is simply unprecedented for its great volume, and as some of the help hitherto available is not now obtainable, owing to discontinuance of the appropriation for passport work, it is obvious that applications for passports can not be considered with anything like the promptness with which this work has been disposed of in the past.

Another feature of passport work not included in the foregoing was the examination of aliens applying for admission from Canada for the purpose of shipping foreign from New York and other United States ports.

Previous to a recent modification of the travel regulations, applicants for admission from Canada to take steamer at United States ports were required to execute the same forms used for residents of our own country, and all passports issued by Governments other than our own were given the indorsement required by the travel regulations, thus facilitating issuance of embarkation permits by the customs authorities at the intended port of departure in the United States.

With war conditions prevailing for nearly five years past, in view of the care which it has been necessary to devote to all passport work-especially when applicants sought entry from foreign countries-it is left with the bureau to form its own conclusions as to the amount of extra work that has devolved upon the officers to contribute in carrying out the provisions of the passport regulations briefly discussed herein.

SUPERVISING INSPECTOR, DISTRICT NO. 23, COMPRISING TEXAS (EXCEPT DISTRICT NO. 9), NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA, AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, WITH HEADQUARTERS AT EL PASO.

ADMISSIONS, REJECTIONS, AND DEPARTURES.

There were entertained and passed upon during the year ended June 30, 1919, applications for admission upon the part of aliens to the number of 105,078, of which 101,347 were granted and 3,731 denied. These figures, as in previous years, compre