The act also required the Secretary of the Treasury to report at the next session of Congress "a plan for the organization of the service in connection with immigration," together with detailed estimates of the employees necessary for such service and their compensation and all other expenses.” 66 A third clause provided for the appointment of commissioners of immigration at the various ports of entry by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, making the term of such appointees four years. The legislative, executive, and judicial act of March 2, 1895 (28 Stat. L., 764, 780), again included clauses affecting the organization of the Bureau. 66 The title Superintendent of Immigration" was changed to "Commissioner-General of Immigration," and this officer, in addition to his other duties, was charged" with the administration of the contract-labor laws. The act further provided, in addition to the CommissionerGeneral, for the following personnel in the Bureau of Immigration: 18 Chief Clerk Confidential Clerk Statistician and Stenographer (with power to act as immigrant inspector) Messenger Assistant Messenger It permitted the detail from the field to duty at Washington, D. C., as conditions demanded, of, at most, three immigrant inspectors. Local organization was still in an unsatisfactory condition, however, as indicated by the report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration in 1897, wherein he pleaded for a separation of the customs and immigration work. Local officers were performing both duties. In 1899 the Commissioner-General urged the necessity of attention to the details and statistics of emigration from the United States and to the more adequate supervision of naturalization work. "Under the Secretary of the Treasury. 18 The title this act. Bureau of Immigration was used for the first time in During this year inspection of immigrants at foreign ports was initiated, an Assistant Surgeon of the Public Health Service being sent to Naples for that purpose." He was instructed to note, for the benefit of the Immigration Service, any physical infirmities or defects which might prevent the entry of the immigrant. No authority was given, at this time, to prevent the embarkation of passengers unless they were suffering from a communicable disease, transportation of defectives being prevented generally by informing the steamship company that such emigrants would probably be refused admission to this country under the immigration laws. Again in 1900 the duties of the Commissioner-General were enlarged. The sundry civil act of June 6, 1900 (31 Stat. L., 588, 611), contained a section granting an appropriation for "enforcing alien contract labor laws and preventing the immigration of convicts, lunatics, idiots, and persons liable to become a public charge, from foreign contiguous territory," with the provision . That one special inspector, whose compensation shall be paid from this appropriation, may be detailed for duty in the bureau at Washington, and hereafter the Commissioner-General of Immigration, in addition to his other duties, shall have charge of the administration of the Chinese exclusion law and of the various acts regulating immigration into the United States, its Territories, and the District of Columbia, under the supervision and direction of the Secretary of the Treasury. This was another step in the process of centralization. Chinese exclusion laws were clarified and extended by the act of April 29, 1902 (32 Stat. L., 176), the Secretary of the Treasury being charged with the duty of prescribing regulations for such exclusion. Collectors of customs passed on the admissibility of Chinese, subject to appeal to the Secretary." Transfer to a New Department. The Treasury Department was soon to lose the control over immigration, however. On February 14, 1903, "An act to establish the Department of Commerce and Labor" (32 Stat. L., 825) was approved. This act (p. 826) transferred the work with the following provision: 19 This officer was detailed under authority of the act of February 15, 1893 (27 Stat. L., 449, 452). 20 In this year, 1902, a card-index of alien arrivals was established in the Bureau. SEC. 4. That the following named offices, bureaus, divisions, and branches of the public service, now and heretofore under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Treasury, and all that pertains to same, known as . . . the Commissioner-General of Immigration, the commissioners of immigration, the Bureau of Immigration, the immigration service at large. . . be, and the same hereby are, transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Commerce and Labor. . . . The law further specified: That the authority, power and jurisdiction now possessed and exercised by the Secretary of the Treasury by virtue of any law in relation to the exclusion from and the residence within the United States, its Territories and the District of Columbia, of Chinese and persons of Chinese descent, are hereby transferred to and conferred upon the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and the authority, power and jurisdiction in relation thereto now vested by law or treaty in the collectors of customs and the collectors of internal revenue, are hereby conferred upon and vested in such officers under the control of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, as the Secretary of Commerce and Labor may designate therefor. Actual transfer was consummated on July 1, 1903, and the Bureau was set up in the new department. The various branches of the service, previously more or less loosely connected, were now united, and the Bureau and Immigration Service organized on the plan, broadly speaking, which exists today. During the next three years numerous laws of varying degrees of importance were approved. The act of March 3, 1903 (32 Stat. L., 1213), had provided for a codification and substantial reenactment of previous immigration laws," the act of March 22, 1904 (33 Stat. L., 144), added citizens of Newfoundland to the exemptions from "head tax" upon immigrants, the joint resolution of April 28, 1904 (33 Stat. L., 591), corrected the wording of the act of March 3, 1903, and the act of February 3, 1905 (33 Stat. L., 631, 684), made provisions regarding the refund of head taxes erroneously collected. " Collectors of customs previously had acted ex officio as commissioners of immigration where such officers had not been appointed. ท "Repealed by the act of February 5, 1917 (39 Stat. L., 874). The act of February 6, 1905 (33 Stat. L., 689, 692, Sec. 6), provided that laws pertaining to immigration in the Philippine Islands should be administered by officers of the insular government rather than of the Bureau of Immigration," while an act of March 3, 1905, permitted annual subscriptions for publications subscribed to by the Immigration Service to be paid in advance (33 Stat. L., 1156, 1182). By 1906 the problems pertaining to the naturalization of aliens had reached a stage where separation from the immigration work was considered a necessity. Such separation was partly accomplished by the act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 596), which changed the .title and added to the duties of the Bureau of Immigration as follows: That the designation of the Bureau of Immigration in the Department of Commerce and Labor is hereby changed to the "Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization," which said Bureau, under the dction and control of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, in addition to the d so provided by law, shall have charge of all matters concerning aturalization of aliens. The new Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was split into two divisions, the Division of Immigration and the Division of Naturalization, the latter being charged with all matters pertaining to the granting of citizenship to aliens, the former continuing the work pertaining to immigration matters. The enforcement of the naturalization laws and the administration of the uniform rules of naturalization with their attendant problems soon became matters of such proportion and importance that the Division of Naturalization was made a separate bureau. This was accomplished at the time the Department of Labor was created (March 14, 1913-37 Stat. L., 736, 737). Ten Years of Legislation. Laws of importance to the Immigration Service appeared frequently during the next ten years. The act of February 20, 1907 (34 Stat. L., 898, 909), having for its purpose the regulation of immigration, was amended by the act of March 26, 1910 (36 Stat. L., 263), and repealed by the act of February 5, 1917 (39 Stat. L., 874). The pertinence of mentioning the act so repealed, lies in the fact that it contained in 23 Reaffirmed by the act of February 20, 1907 (34 Stat. L., 898, Sec. 43). Section 24 a provision for the establishment of a Division of The Division was charged with the duty of promoting "a beneficial distribution of aliens admitted into the United States among the several states and territories desiring immigration." Such work was carried on, increasing in volume and importance, until, under the pressure of war conditions, it resulted directly in the establishment of the United States Employment Service." Thereafter the distribution work was not carried on by the Bureau of Immigration, though the Division of Information which had been taken from the Bureau December 13, 1917, by departmental order, was returned to its original status on July 1, 1918. On March 4, 1909, the "immigrant fund"" was abolished, and such moneys were thereafter covered into the Treasury as " revenue receipts" (35 Stat. L., 945, 969).* 27 Previous to 1909 the local administration of the immigration regulations and the Chinese exclusion laws had been, to a considerable extent, separate. Beginning in October of that year, the country was divided into twenty-three districts, each in charge of an officer who was made responsible for the supervision both of general immigration and Chinese exclusion regulations. The distinction between the two was gradually abolished, special officers on either branch being maintained only where conditions demanded. At the same time enforcement of both sets of laws along the Canadian border was concentrated under the Commissioner at Montreal and similarly, on the Mexican border, the duties were placed under the Supervising Inspector at El Paso. The next year a law was approved (June 25, 1910, 36 Stat. L., 825, 826) which dealt primarily with the problem of interstate or foreign transportation of women for immoral purposes, but specified in Section 6: "Provision for the continuation of the Division was contained in the act of 1917, which retained it under the Bureau of Immigration. It has since been discontinued. 25 For a more comprehensive description of the Division of Information and the Employment Service, see Institute for Government Research, The U. S. Employment Service (1923). 27 Another act of the same date (35 Stat. L., 1060) dealt with manifests of aliens outward bound on certain vessels. |