Your Letters for Dec. 26, 2025

Political football

As I have watched for years the way our immigration process has been in the USA, it has been a political football! Depending on who the president is and which party controlled Congress, it seems that the rules are flexible.

My father came to this country in 1920 at the age of 15. He was the last male in his family to come to the U.S. He, at that time was the “man” of the house due to the other men serving in the military or even on the police force! He came with three aunts from the town as 5,000 people went through the island a day.

They knew very little English, so the tension of them getting into the country was high and unknown. Unlike today, the people who came through Ellis Island in New York had a questionnaire of 29 questions they had to fill out on the ship that was bringing them to this country. Just a sidebar: if they were rejected at immigration, they had to “pay” their own way back too!

The 29-questions ranged were:

• Your manifest number (from your ship)?
• What is your full name?
• How old are you?
• Are you male or female?
• Are you married, single, widowed, or divorced?
• What is your occupation?
• Are you able to read and write? (yes or no)
• What country are you from?
• What is your race? (note: no question was asked about religion)
• What was your last permanent place of residence? (city and country)
• What are the name and U.S. address of a relative from your native country?
• What is your destination in America? (city and state)
• Your number on the immigration list?
• Do you have a ticket to your destination? (yes or no)
• Who paid for your passage?
• How much money do you have? (at least the equivalent of $50 dollars was needed, which is $812.00 today)
• Have you been to America before? If so when, where and how long?
• Are you meeting a relative here in America? If so, who and their address?
• Have you been in a prison, charity almshouse, or insane asylum?
• Are you a polygamist? (Yes or No)
• Are you an anarchist?
• Are you coming to America for a job?
• What and where will you work?
• What is the condition of your health?
• Are you deformed or crippled?
• How tall are you?
• What is your skin color?
• What color are your eyes and hair? (much like on today’s driver’s license)
• Do you have any identifying marks? (scars, birthmarks, or tattoos)
• Where were you born? (city and country)
• Are you meeting a relative here in America? Who?
• Who was the first President of America?
• What is the Constitution?
• Which President freed the slaves?
• Can you name the 13 original Colonies?
• Who is the current President of the United States?

Does anybody have the questions to be filled out in the last 40 years? Do you think many immigrants today would pass?

It would take the doctors about 6 seconds to tell if anybody had anemia or trachoma; they also had to answer those 29 questions and pass a medical examination, documents, background checks, and financial proof! In 1920, the manifest show people of Jewish, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, Syrian, and Turkish descent. If you had any problem, you were put back on the boat!

Today it’s “run for it and if you make it,” proceed to sign up for the “free government benefits.”

In 1920, the year he came to the U.S. along with 1 million other immigrants, (a total of 12 million passed through Ellis), not all made it. 1,000 were rejected in 1920.

It took them five years to get their citizenship — after passing health exams, legal clearance, had a job, were self-supporting, passed a test. They were tracked by the number assigned to them by the ship manifest. After complying with the rules of the immigration act of 1917.

Today, 33-40% of Americans can trace family heritage to Ellis Island.

Today, 2 million visitors tour Ellis Island a year.

Ben Pecora
St. Joseph