Let’s get the history of American immigration policy straight. #immigrationhistory #legalhistory 1/
First of all, contrary to the popular and scholarly myth that American borders were open (meaning anybody could enter the US) until the introduction of federal Chinese exclusion law in the 1880s, American borders were NEVER legally open even before that. 2/
Before the federal government started regulating immigration during the 1880s, the administration of immigration largely fell upon local and state governments. 3/
During the colonial period, the British introduced to the American colonies their home country’s poor laws, which included provisions for banishing transient beggars and prohibiting the landing of paupers. 4/
These poor laws eventually developed into state laws for regulating foreign immigration after the independence. 5/
During the first several decades of the 19th century, thus, immigration regulation operated at the local and state levels. Most Atlantic seaboard states had some laws for restricting the landing of destitute immigrants and those appearing likely to become public charges. 6/
An 1848 Massachusetts law provided that no “lunatic, idiot, maimed, aged, or inform person, incompetent . . . to maintain themselves” or pauper was allowed to land unless the shipmaster provided a special bond for such a passenger. 7/
While most seaboard states had immigrant exclusion laws of this kind, Massachusetts also had laws for deporting destitute foreigners already resident in the US back to their countries of origin. In other words, the Bay State had “post-entry” deportation laws. 8/
These state immigration laws in the antebellum US were largely targeted against the Irish poor. The origins of American immigration policy lay in anti-Irish sentiment and more fundamentally economic concerns about their poverty. 9/