Why weren't the immigrants who entered through Ellis Island questioned about their legal status?
LOL. This was a rhetorical question. Thank you all for proving my point: You CAN'T argue that your ancestors immigrated the RIGHT way, because it was the ONLY way to immigrate back then. therefore, it's an informal fallacy to argue that earlier immigrants, as oppose to current immigrants, came here legally. For the sake of this discussion. A legitimate comparison would be to open an "Ellis Island" to our southern border to "process" the newcomers in the same way the vast majority of the earlier immigrants arrived. I'm sure you pro-minutemen would love that....lol BTW, I've yet to choose the best answer!
What was the process at Ellis Island?
"Upon arrival in New York City, first and second class passengers would disembark, pass through Customs and were free to enter the United States. The steerage and third class passengers were transported from the pier by ferry or barge to Ellis Island where everyone would undergo a medical and legal inspection... If the immigrants' papers were in order and they were in reasonably good health, the Ellis Island inspection process would last approximately three to five hours. The inspections took place in the Registry Room, where doctors would briefly scan every immigrant for obvious physical ailments. Doctors at Ellis Island soon became very adept at conducting these "six second physicals." By 1916, it was said that a doctor could identify numerous medical conditions (ranging from anemia to goiter to varicose veins) just by glancing at an immigrant. The ship's manifest log contained the immigrant's name and his/her answers to twenty-nine questions. This document was used by the legal inspectors at Ellis Island to cross examine the immigrant during the legal inspection. The two agencies responsible for processing immigrants at Ellis Island were the United States Public Health Service and the United States Bureau of Immigration (now known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service - INS)."
If immigration is a problem, why have many processing centers, like Ellis Island been closed?
Well there are these places called Consulates and Embassies. If you want to get visa to a country you go to a consulate or embassy and apply for visa. You give them all of your info as well as your passport, medical documents (health check), etc. Then you are either approved or denied a visa. All the processing is done abroad at embassies.
Why did undocumented immigrants choose to enter the US illegally, opposed to legally?
First of all, not all undocumented immigrants entered the US illegally — many entered legally and overstayed. As to why they “immigrated” illegally:Because they can’t immigrate legally. The vast majority of foreigners simply do not have any available path to immigrate to the US legally.Foreigners cannot just arbitrarily “choose” to immigrate to the US legally. They cannot just sign up, fill some forms, pay some money, and “get in a line”. That’s not how the US immigration system works. They must be petitioned, either as a relative of a US citizen or permanent resident, or by a US employer who will employ them after immigration.To be petitioned as a relative, you must be the spouse, parent, child, or sibling of a US citizen (in the case of parent and sibling, the US citizen must be at least 21), or as the spouse or unmarried child of a US permanent resident. The vast majority of foreigners in the world simply do not have such a close relative who is a US citizen or permanent resident.To be petitioned by an employer, you must be offered a highly-skilled job where a US citizen or permanent resident cannot be found to do it, and the company has to go through a complicated process to certify that a US person cannot be found. Companies will generally not go through this process unless the person is already working for them inside the US.There are some other minor avenues of immigration, e.g. asylum or persons of extraordinary ability, but those are only for special circumstances. The “diversity visa” is not available to people born in the countries with the most immigration to the US, and even for the other countries, the number of visas available each year is so low that the chance of getting it is negligible even if you apply every year.
At the time when Ellis Island was the main processing hub for US immigration, did a lot of people escape from the island without waiting for all the tests and official admission? Was it hard to escape from or avoid Ellis Island, coming to the US?
The reason they call it Ellis Island is because it is an island in the middle of the Hudson River. There were no bridges to New York City. If you were on the island, you got off by ferry. It would be a long swim to escape from the island.Ellis Island was a major immigration processing site but not the only one. As I recall, my Irish ancestors entered the US through Boston. And, there were others. Ellis Island was just the most famous processing site and by far the largest.
What happened at government reception centers for immigrants in the 1900s?
Well at a place like Ellis Island, they'd be separated by language group, and go through a screening processing. They'd have to show their papers were correct, and submit to a physical. In some cases, they might be quarantined if it was suspected they were carrying an illness. Once it was determined they were OK, they would be transported over to New York and pretty much let loose. In many cases they'd have family waiting for them, and some fraternal groups (Sons of Italy etc.) might have people there to help people as they arrived.