steamship companies did solicit and promote immigration contrary to the law. The new law is far more stringent in this regard, as it subjects violators to either civil or criminal prosecution, instead of civil prosecution alone as in earlier laws. What is more to the point, the Secretary of Labor is given authority to impose an administrative fine of $400 in each case if he deems such action advisable. The new law goes even further than this in an effort to prevent the stimulation of immigration by the steamship companies for it even stipulates that, whenever the Secretary of Labor is satisfied that the law is being persistently violated, it shall be his duty to deny to the offending steamship company the right to land passengers of any or all classes at United States ports for such a period as may be necessary to insure an observance of the law.

Under the Act of 1907 the Secretary of Labor was granted a special fund of $50,000 annually for the enforcement of the law excluding contract laborers, and in the new act the fund is increased to $100,000 annually and made available for the exclusion of induced and assisted immigrants as well as contract laborers.

OVERCOMING A SUPREME COURT DECISION

Another amendment which may be of considerable importance in the administration of the immigration law concerns the long existing provision excluding persons likely to become a public charge. Altho necessarily indefinite this provision is very effective, and among the various classes who are denied admission year by year "persons likely to become a public charge" have been by far the most numerous. In the text of the old law this class appeared between paupers and professional beggars in the list of excluded aliens, and

accordingly the inference was that it applied solely to the aliens' condition as regards health, age, means, etc. But immigration officials eventually began to consider circumstances not directly connected with the alien in determining whether they were likely to become public charges if admitted, and finally it became a common practise to reject persons on that account, because poor economic conditions existed in the locality to which they were destined, or even because of racial feeling against the alien in question, the theory being that if aliens could not get employment there they would necessarily become public charges.

This construction of the law was finally tested in the courts in the case of a group of Russian Ossetins, a Caucasus Mountain people, who came to New York, destined to Portland, Oregon, and were denied admission as persons likely to become a public charge chiefly because it appeared that because of poor industrial conditions then existing in Portland it would be impossible for them to find employment there. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, took an opposite view of the matter, and, in short, held that aliens could be excluded as "likely to become a public charge" only "on the ground of permanent personal objections accompanying them irrespective of local conditions." In reaching this decision the Supreme Court held that so long as "persons likely to become a public charge" were mentioned in the law along with beggars, paupers, idiots and other classes of that nature they were to be considered as generally similar to the others and therefore not liable to different treatment. The court held that the statute "deals with admission to the United States, not to Portland" and added that:

"It would be an amazing claim of power if commissioners decided not to admit aliens because the labor market of the United States was overstocked. Yet, as officers of the general Government, they would seem to be more concerned with that than with the conditions of any particular city or State."

The Secretary of Labor appealed to Congress to amend the law so as to overcome the Court's objection and recommended that the clause be amended to read persons likely for any reason to become a public charge," and that it be transferred from its unhappy position between paupers and beggars to another part of the section. Congress adopted the last but not the first suggestion, and the provision is now found in that part of the section which refers more especially to rejections on account of economic conditions.

DEPORTATION OF CRIMINALS

The regulation of immigration was not fully assumed by the Federal Government until 1882. Among various other classes of aliens who were deemed undesirable the law enacted in that year provided for the exclusion of convicts, except those convicted of political offenses. All subsequent laws have a similar provision, and since 1891, in common with other debarred aliens, convicts or criminals whose true character was not discovered until after they were admitted to the country have been subject to deportation. At first such deportations could be made only within one year after landing, but this period was subsequently extended to two, and then to three years, and in the new law it is fixt at five years, with the drastic proviso that anarchists, and persons who were criminals before coming to the United States, may be deported irrespective of the

time of their entry into the country. Since 1910 the law has provided for the deportation of prostitutes and persons concerned with prostitution without reference to the date of their imigration, but all other classes were until now exempt from deportation after three years residence in this country.

Until the present law went into effect, however, there was no provision whatever for deporting aliens on account of crimes committed after landing in the United States, except, as already stated, in the case of prostitution and relating offenses. No matter how many other crimes an alien might commit in this country he could not be deported on account of them, and in consequence there was no legal means of getting rid of this class of undesirables. But the new law makes a radical change in the previous policy of the Government in this respect by providing as follows:

Any alien who is hereafter sentenced to imprisonment for a term of one year or more because of conviction in this country of a crime involving moral turpitude, committed within five years after the entry of the alien to the United States, or who is hereafter sentenced more than once to such a term of imprisonment because of conviction in this country of any crime involving moral turpitude, committed at any time after entry . . . shall upon the warrant of the Secretary of Labor, be taken into custody and deported.

It is provided, however, that deportation shall not be made if a criminal is pardoned, or if the court imposing sentence makes a recommendation that deportation shall not be made.

'A's elsewhere noted,* the deportation of aliens on account of crimes committed after landing in the United States was one of the recommendations which the Im

* See page 329.

migration Commission made to Congress, and from the Commission's investigation of alien criminality it is believed that it is a provision which will have a wholesome effect on certain kinds of law violations which are all too prevalent among our immigration population.

INCREASED HEAD TAX

The new law fixes the "head tax" at $8.00 on every alien entering the United States, excepting children under sixteen years of age who accompany their father or their mother. In the previous law the tax was $4.00 on every alien without reference to age. According to the report of the Senate Committee on Immigration * the purpose of exempting children under sixteen is, "to make the increased head tax fall more heavily on the unmarried and 'bird-of-passage' class of aliens than upon men accompanied by their wives or children; to have the tax, to the slight extent that it operates as a restrictive factor, apply most strongly against the least desirable elements."

In making this change in the law Congress followed a suggestion of the Immigration Commission that the head tax be adjusted so as to make a marked discrimination in favor of men with families. Under the old law, residents of Canada, Newfoundland, Cuba, or Mexico were admitted without payment of the head tax, but now the exemption is limited to those countries only when they come for a temporary stay, and while the old law did not impose the tax on immigrants entering Guam, Porto Rico, or Hawaii, the new law makes no such exception in that regard.

* Senate Report No. 352, 64th Congress, 2d Session, p. 3.