IMMIGRATION OF ALIENS, ETC.

JANUARY 16, 1913.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. BURNETT, from the committee of conference, submitted the following

CONFERENCE REPORT.

[To accompany S. 3175.]

The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses to the bill (S. 3175) entitled "An act to regulate the immigration of aliens to and the residence of aliens in the United States " having met, after full and free conference, have agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective Houses as follows:

That the Senate recede from its disagreement to the amendment of the House and agree to the same with an amendment as follows: Strike out all of said amendment and insert in lieu thereof the following:

AN ACT To regulate the immigration of aliens to and the residence of aliens in the United States.

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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the word alien" wherever used in this Act shall include any person not a native born or naturalized citizen of the United States, but this definition shall not be held to include Indians not taxed or citizens of the islands under the jurisdiction of the United States. That the term United States as used in the title as well as in the various sections of this Act shall be construed to mean the United States and any waters, territory, or other place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, except the Isthmian Canal Zone; but if any alien shall leave the Canal Zone and attempt to enter any other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, nothing contained in this Act shall be construed as permitting him to enter under any other conditions than those applicable to all aliens. That the term "seaman" as used in this Act shall include every person signed on the ship's articles and employed in any capacity on board any vessel arriving in the United States from any foreign part or place.

That this Act shall be enforced in the Philippine Islands by officers of the General Government thereof designated by appropriate legislation of said Government.

Sec. 2. That there shall be levied, collected, and paid a tax of five dollars for every alien, including alien seamen regularly admitted as provided in this Act, entering the United States. The said tax shall be paid to the collector of customs of the port of customs district to which said alien shall come, or, if there be no collector at such port or district, then to the collector nearest thereto, by the master, agent, owner, or consignee of the vessel, transportation line, or other conveyance or vehicle bringing such alien to the United States, or by the alien himself if he does not come by a vessel, transportation line, or other conveyance or vehicle. The tax imposed by this section shall be a lien upon the vessel or other vehicle of carriage or transportation bringing such aliens to the United States, and shall be a debt in favor of the United States against the owner or owners of such vessel or other vehicle, and the payment of such tax may be enforced by any legal or equitable remedy. That the said tax shall not be levied on account of aliens who shall enter the United States after an uninterrupted residence of at least one year, immediately preceding such entrance, in the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, the Republic of Cuba, or the Republic of Mexico, nor on account of otherwise admissible residents of any possession of the United States, nor on account of aliens in transit through the United States, nor upon aliens who have been lawfully admitted to the United States and who later shall go in transit from one part of the United States to another through foreign contiguous territory: Provided, That the Commissioner General of Immigration, under the direction or with the approval of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, by agreement with transportation lines, as provided in section twenty-three of this Act, may arrange in some other manner for the payment of the tax imposed by this section upon any or all aliens seeking admission from foreign contiguous territory: Provided further, That said tax, when levied upon aliens entering the Philippine Islands, shall be paid into the treasury of said islands, to be expended for the benefit of such islands: Provided further, That in the cases of aliens applying for admission from foreign contiguous territory and rejected, the head tax collected shall upon application be refunded to the alien: Provided further, That the provisions of this section shall nat apply to aliens arriving in Guam or Hawaii; but if any such alien, not having become a citizen of the United States, shall later arrive at any port or place of the United States on the North American Continent the provisions of this section shall apply.

Sec. 3. That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All'idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; vagrants; persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such

mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living; persons who have committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; citizens or subjects of any country that issues penal certificates or certificates of character who do not produce to the immigration officials such a certificate; polygamists, or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy; anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States, or of all forms of law, or who disbelieve in or are opposed to organized government, or who advocate the assassination of public officials; persons who are members of or affiliated with any organization entertaining and teaching disbelief in or opposition to organized government, or who advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers, either of specific individuals or of officers generally, of the Government of the United States or of any other organized government, because of his or their official character; prostitutes, or women or girls coming into the United States for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who procure or attempt to bring in prostitutes or women or girls for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who are supported by or receive in whole or in part the proceeds of prostitution; persons hereinafter called contract laborers, who have been induced, assisted, encouraged, or solicited to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment, whether such offers or promises are true or false, or in consequence of agreements, oral, written or printed, express or implied, to perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled or unskilled; persons who have come in consequence of advertisements for laborers printed, published, or distributed in a foreign country; persons who have been deported under any of the provisions of this Act, and who may again seek admission within one year from the date of such deportation, unless prior to their reembarkation at a foreign port, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall have consented to their reapplying for admission; persons whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another, or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is affirmatively and satisfactorily shown that such person does not belong to one of the foregoing excluded classes; persons whose ticket or passage is paid for by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign Government, either directly or indirectly; stowaways, except that any such stowaway may be admitted in the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor; all children under sixteen years of age, unaccompanied by one or both of their parents, at the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor or under such regulations as he may from time to time prescribe; persons who can not become eligible, under existing law, to become citizens of the United States by naturalization, unless otherwise provided for by existing agreements as to passports, or by treaties, conventions, or agreements that may hereafter be entered into. The provision next foregoing, however, shall not apply to persons of the following status or occupations: Government officers, ministers or religious teachers, missionaries, lawyers, physicians, chemists, engineers, teachers, students, authors, editors, journalists, merchants, bankers, and travelers for curiosity or pleasure, nor to their legal wives or their children under

sixteen years of age who shall accompany them or who subsequently may apply for admission to the United States, but such persons or their legal wives or foreign-born children who fail to maintain in the United States a status or occupation placing them within the excepted classes shall be deemed to be in the United States contrary to law, and shall be subject to deportation as provided in section nineteen of this Act.

That after four months from the approval of this Act, in addition to the aliens who are by law now excluded from admission into the United States, the following persons shall also be excluded from admission thereto, to wit:

All aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who can not read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish: Provided, That any admissible alien or any alien heretofore or hereafter legally admitted, or any citizen of the United States, may bring in or send for his father or grandfather over fifty-five years of age, his wife, his mother, his grandmother, or his unmarried or widowed daughter, if otherwise admissible, whether such relative can read or not; and such relatives shall be permitted to enter. That for the purpose of ascertaining whether aliens can read the immigrant inspectors shall be furnished with slips, of uniform size, prepared under the direction of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, each containing not less than thirty nor more than forty words in ordinary use, printed in plainly legible type in the various languages and dialects of immigrants. Each alien may designate the particular language or dialect in which he desires the examination to be made, and shall be required to read the words printed on the slip in such language or dialect. No two aliens coming in the same vessel or other vehicle of carriage or transportation shall be tested with the same slip. That the following classes of persons shall be exempt from the operation of the illiteracy test, to wit: All aliens who shall prove to the satisfaction of the proper immigration officer or to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor that they are seeking admission to the United States solely for the purpose of escaping from religious persecution; all aliens in transit through the United States; all aliens who have been lawfully admitted to the United States and who later shall go in transit from one part of the United States to another through foreign contiguous territory: Provided, That nothing in this Act shall exclude, if otherwise admissible, persons convicted of an offense purely political, not involving moral turpitude: Provided further, That the provisions of this Act relating to the payments for tickets or passage by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign government shall not apply to the tickets or passage of aliens in immediate and continuous transit through the United States to foreign contiguous territory: Provided further, That skilled labor, if otherwise admissible, may be imported if labor of like kind unemployed can not be found in this country, and the question of the necessity of importing such skilled labor in any particular instance may be determined by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor upon the application of any person interested, such application to be made before such importation, and such determination by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to be reached after a full hearing and an investigation into the facts of the case: Provided further, That the