![]() ![]() “The great contradiction or irony here is that you have a massive inspection process, and you have this restrictionist sentiment and all these people you want to keep out of the country and, at the end of the day, less than 2 percent are rejected,” Cannato says. Just 2 percent of immigrants at Ellis Island were denied entry to the United States. The only free food was given to detainees held forcibly overnight.” In the box was a sandwich, pie and an apple. “If they wanted a meal, they could go downstairs to the lunchroom where the restaurant keeper sold boxed lunches: a large box for $1, a small box for 50 cents. If you weren’t held, you were immediately released, with most immigrants passing through Ellis Island in three to five hours with no overnight stays or meals served, Moreno says. (Credit: New York Public Library/Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images) Pens at the Ellis Island Registry Room, or Great Hall, filled with immigrants in 1907. “They were looking for suspected anarchists, persons who were politically dangerous and contract laborers-immigrants who were being brought in to break strikes.” “You would be forced to stay at Ellis Island until something was resolved, such as being wired money or being able to provide an address.” He says serious detention cases, which were rare, could be designated for almost any reason but usually had something to do with questions of morality (if, for example, a woman was pregnant and unmarried) or criminal accusations. “Detention meant you could be held overnight, and you would sleep in dormitory rooms and you would be fed three meals a day in the immigrants’ dining room,” Moreno says. “If everything was OK, he would just make a little check mark by your name, but if your answers were bad, wrong or suspicious, or if secret information had arrived about you previous to your arrival, your name was marked with an ‘X’ and you were told you would be detained.” “The inspector would verify the passenger manifest by rereading the information provided,” Moreno says. Next, immigrants were filtered into long lines to be interviewed by inspectors (often with the help of interpreters). All you had to do was verbally give information to the official when you boarded ship in Europe and that information was the only information used when they arrived.” “In fact, no papers were required at all. ![]() “Now, in 1907, no passports or visas were needed to enter the United States,” he says. “You could have as many as 1,500 passengers in third class alone.”įirst- and second-class passengers (billionaires, stage stars, merchants, businessmen and the like) were interviewed and allowed to disembark once the ship docked. “They had to start immigration procedures really fast because there were so many passengers-often as many as 2,000 to 3,000 passengers from all classes,” Moreno says. Once the ship passed inspection, immigration officers began boarding the ship via rope ladders, before it docked. The process went something like this: Before the ship was allowed to enter into New York Harbor, according to Moreno, it had to stop at a quarantine checkpoint off the coast of Staten Island where doctors would look for dangerous contagious diseases such as smallpox, yellow fever, plague, cholera and leprosy. ![]()
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