Immigration Act Of 1907
Be it enacted . . ., That there shall be levied, collected, and paid a tax of four dollars for every alien entering the United States. The said tax shall be paid to the collector of customs of the port or customs district to which said alien shall comes or, if there be no collector at such port or district, then to the collector nearest thereto, by the master, agent, owner, or consignee of the vessel, transportation line, or other conveyance or vehicle bringing such alien to the United States. The money thus collected, together with all fines and rentals collected under the laws regulating the immigration of aliens into the United States, shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States, and shall constitute a permanent appropriation to be called the "immigrant fund," to be used under the direction of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to defray the expense of regulating the immigration of aliens into the United States under said laws, including the contract labor laws, the cost of reports of decisions of the Federal courts, and digest thereof, for the use of the Commissioner General of Immigration, and the salaries and expenses of all officers, clerks, and employees appointed to enforce said laws. The tax imposed by this section shall be a lien upon the vessel, or other vehicle of carriage or transportation bringing such aliens to the United States, and shall be a debt in favor of the United States against the owner or owners of such vessel, or other vehicle, and the payment of such tax may be enforced by any legal or equitable remedy. That the said tax shall not be levied upon aliens who shall enter the United States after an uninterrupted residence of at least one year, immediately preceding such entrance, in the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, the Republic of Cuba, or the Republic of Mexico, nor upon otherwise admissible residents of any possession of the United States, nor upon aliens in transit through the United States, nor upon aliens who have been lawfully admitted to the United States and who later shall go in transit from one part of the United States to another through foreign contiguous territory: .... Provided further, That the provisions of this section shall not apply to aliens arriving in Guam, Porto Rico, or Hawaii; but if any such alien, not having become a citizen of the United States, shall later arrive at any port or place of the United States on the North American Continent the provisions of this section shall apply: Provided further, That whenever the President shall be satisfied that passports issued by any foreign government to its citizens to go to any country other than the United States or to any insular possession of the United States or to the Canal Zone are being used for the purpose of enabling the holders to come to the continental territory of the United States to the detriment of labor conditions therein, the President may refuse to permit such citizens of the country issuing such passports to enter the continental territory of the United States from such other country or from such insular possessions or from the Canal Zone.
SEC. 2. That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such
alien to earn a living; persons who have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy, anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States, or of all government, or of all forms of law, or the assassination of public officials; [persons coming for immoral purposes ;] persons hereinafter called contract laborers, who have been induced or solicited to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment or in consequence of agreements, oral, written or printed, express or implied, to perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled or unskilled; those who have been, within one year from the date of application for admission to the United States, deported as having been induced or solicited to migrate as above described; any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another, or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is affirmatively and satisfactorily shown that such person does not belong to one of the foregoing excluded classes, and that said ticket or passage was not paid for by any corporation, association, society, municipality or foreign government, either directly or indirectly; all chiidren under sixteen years of age, unaccompanied by one or both of their parents, at the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor or under such regulations as he may from time to time prescribe: Provided, That nothing in this Act shall exclude, if otherwise admissible, persons convicted of an offense purely political, not involving moral turpitude: Provided further, That the provisions of this section relating to the payments for tickets or passage by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign government shall not apply to the tickets or passage of aliens in immediate and continuous transit through the United States to foreign contiguous territory: And provided further, That skilled labor may be imported if labor of like kind unemployed can not be found in this country: And provided further, That the provisions of this law applicable to contract labor shall not be held to exclude professional actors, artists, lecturers, singers, ministers of any religious denomination, professors for colleges or seminaries, persons belonging to any recognized
learned profession, or persons employed strictly as personal or domestic servants
SEC. 6. That it shall be unlawful . . . to assist or encourage the importation or migration of any alien by promise of employment through advertisements printed and published in any foreign country; and any alien coming to this country in consequence of such an advertisement shall be treated as coming under promise or agreement as contemplated in section two of this Act . . .: Provided, That this section shall not apply to State or Territories, the District of Columbia, or places subject to the jurisdiction of the United States advertising the inducements they offer for immigration thereto, respectively.
SEC. 7. That no transportation company or owner or owners of vessels, or others engaged in transporting aliens into the United States, shall, directly or indirectly, either by writing, printing, or oral representation, solicit, invite, or encourage the immigration of any aliens into the United States, but this shall not be held to prevent transportation companies from issuing letters, circulars, or advertisements, stating the sailings of their vessels and terms and facilities of transportation therein ....
SEC. 8. . That any person, including the master, agent, owner, or consignee of any vessel, who shall bring into or land in the United States, by vessel or otherwise, or who shall attempt, by himself or through another, to bring into or land in the United States, by vessel or otherwise, any alien not duly admitted by an immigrant inspector or not lawfully entitled to enter the United States shall be deemed guilty of a misderneanor, and shall, on conviction, be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or by both such fine and imprisonment for each and every alien so landed or brought in or attempted to be landed or brought in.
SEC. 9. That it shall be unlawful for any person, including any transportation company other than railway lines entering the United States from foreign contiguous territory, or the owner, master, agent, or consignee of any vessel to bring to
the United States any alien subject to any of the following disabilities: Idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, or persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease . .. .
SEC. IO. That the decision of the board of special inquiry, hereinafter provided for, based upon the certificate of the examining medical officer, shall be final as to the rejection of aliens affected with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, or with any mental or physical disability which would bring such aliens within any of the classes excluded from admission to the United States under section two of this Act.
SEC. 11 That upon the certificate of a medical officer of the United States Public Health and Marine Hospital Service to the effect that a rejected alien is helpless from sickness, mental or physical disability, or infancy, if such alien is accompanied by another alien whose protection or guardianship is required by such rejected alien, such accompanying alien may also be excluded, and the master, agent, owner, or Consignee of the vessel in which such alien and accompanying alien are brought shall be required to return said alien and accompanying alien in the same manner as vessels are required to return other rejected aliens.
SEC. 19. That all aliens brought to this country in violation of law shall, if practicable, be immediately sent back to the country whence they respectively came on the vessels bringing them. The cost of their maintenance while on land, as well as the expense of the return of such aliens, shall be borne by the owner or owners of the vessels on which they respectively came; and if any master, person in charge, agent, owner, or consignee of any such vessel shall refuse to receive back on board thereof, or on board of any other vessel owned or operated by the same interests, such aliens, or shall fail to detain them thereon, or shall refuse or fail to return them to the foreign port from which they came, or to pay the cost of their maintenance while on land, or shall make any charge for the return of any such alien, or shall take any security from him for the payment of such charge, such master, person in charge, agent
owner, or consignee shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall, on conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than three hundred dollars for each and every such offense; and no vessel shall have clearance from any port of the United States while any such fine is unpaid: Provided, That the CommissionerGeneral of Immigration, with the approval of the Secretary of Comrnerce and Labor, may suspend, upon conditions to be prescribed by the Commissioner-General of Immigration, the deportation of any alien found to have come in violation of any provision of this Act, if, in his judgment, the testimony of such alien is necessary on behalf of the United States Government in the prosecution of offenders against any provision of this Act: Provided, That the cost of maintenance of any person so detained resulting from such suspension of deportation shall be paid from the "immigrant fund" but no alien certified, as provided in section seventeen of this Act, to be suffering from tuberculosis or from a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease other than one of quarantinable nature shall be permitted to land for medical treatment thereof in any hospital in the United States, unless with the express permission of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor: Provided, That upon the certificate of a medical officer of the United States Public Health and MarineHospital Service to the effect that the health or safety of an insane alien would be unduly imperiled by immediate deportation, such alien may, at the expense of the "immigrant fund," be held for treatment until such time as such alien may, in the opinion of such medical officer, be safely deported.
SEC. 20. That any alien who shall enter the United States in violation of law, and such as become public charges from causes existing prior to landing, shall, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, be taken into custody and deported to the country whence he came at any time within three years after the date of his entry into the United States. Such deportation, including one-half of the entire cost of removal to the port of deportation, shall be at the expense of the contractor, procurer, or other person by whom the alien was unlawfully induced to enter the United States, or, if that can not be done, then the cost of removal to the port of deportation shall be at the expense of the "immigrant fund" provided for
in section one of this Act, and the deportation from such port shall be at the expense of the owner or owners of such vessel or transportation line by which such aliens respectively came . . .
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SEC. 2I. That in case the Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall be satisfied that an alien has been found in the United States in violation of this Act, or that an alien is subject to deportation under the provisions of this Act or of any law of the United States, he shall cause such alien within the period of three years after landing or entry therein to be taken into custody and returned to the country whence he came, as provided by section twenty of this Act, and a failure or refusal on the part of the masters, agents, owners, or consignees of vessels to comply with the order of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to take on board, guard safely, and return to the country whence he came any alien ordered to be deported under the provisions of this Act shall be punished by the imposition of the penalties prescribed in section nineteen of this Act: Provided, That when in the opinion of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor the mental or physical condition of such alien is such as to require personal care and attendance, he may employ a suitable person for that purpose, who shall accompany such alien to his or her final destination, and the expense incident to such service shall be defrayed in like manner.
SEC. 22. That the Commissioner-General of Immigration, in addition to such other duties as may by law be assigned to him, shall, under the direction of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, have charge of the administration of all laws relating to the immigration of aliens into the United States, and shall have the control, direction, and supervision of all officers, clerks, and employees appointed thereunder....
SEC. 29. That the circuit and district courts of the United States are hereby invested with full and concurrent jurisdiction of all causes, civil and criminal, arising under any of the provisions of this Act.
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SEC. 37. That whenever an alien shall have taken up his permanent residence in this country, and shall have filed his
declaration of intention to become a citizen, and thereafter shall send for his wife, or minor children to join him, if said wife or any of said children shall be found to be affected with any contagious disorder, such wife or children shall be held, under such regulations as the Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall prescribe, until it shall be determined whether the disorder will be easily curable, or whether they can be permitted to land without danger to other persons; and they shall not be either admitted or deported until such facts have been ascertained; and if it shall be determined that the disorder is easily curable or that they can be permitted to land without danger to other persons, they shall, if otherwise admissible, thereupon be admitted.
SEC. 38. That no person who disbelieves in or who is opposed to all organized government, or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization entertaining and teaching such disbelief in or opposition to all organized government, or who advocates or teaches the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers,either of specific individuals or of officers generally, of the Government of the United States or of any other organized government, because of his or their official character, shall be permitted to enter the United States or any territory or place subject to the jurisdiction thereof....
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SEC. 4I. That nothing in this Act shall be construed to apply to accredited officials of foreign governments nor to their suites, families, or guests.
Approved, February 20, I907.
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