Immigration
The U.S. Deported a Million of Its Own Citizens to Mexico During the Great Depression
In the 1930s, the Los Angeles Welfare Department decided to start deporting hospital patients of Mexican descent. One of the patients was a woman with leprosy who was driven just over the border and left in Mexicali, Mexico. Others had tuberculosis, paralysis, mental illness or ...read more
How Border-Crossing Became a Crime in the United States
In the early 20th century, it wasn’t a crime to enter the U.S. without authorization. Though authorities could still deport immigrants who hadn’t gone through an official entry point, they couldn’t be detained and prosecuted for a federal crime. But that all changed in 1929 when ...read more
The 1840 U.S. Census Was Overly Interested in Americans' Mental Health
The 2020 census won’t ask you about how many people in your family are “idiots” or “insane,” but in 1840 that was a question census workers had to answer for every household. The Census Bureau added the question at a time when reformers were interested in creating institutions to ...read more
The 8-Year-Old Chinese American Girl Who Helped Desegregate Schools—in 1885
Nearly 70 years before Topeka’s Linda Brown and others challenged restrictive school laws on behalf of African Americans, sparking the legal battle that resulted in the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, 8-year-old Mamie Tape of San Francisco, and her ...read more
Chinese Americans Were Once Forbidden to Testify in Court. A Murder Changed That
Yee Shun was new to Las Vegas, in New Mexico Territory, and he didn’t intend to stay long. Though he’d secured a job at a local hotel, he’d decided to move on to Albuquerque, a frontier city even more promising and bustling than 1882 Las Vegas. But first, he planned to look up a ...read more
The Secret Cold War Program That Airlifted Cuban Kids to the U.S.—Without Their Parents
“What are you doing here?” The social worker peered at Carlos Eire, shocked to find the Cuban 12-year-old in a home for delinquent boys in Miami, Florida. “You’re supposed to be with your uncle.” By 1963, the preteen had been living in the foster home for months, accompanied by ...read more
How the Immigrants Who Came to Ellis Island in 1907 Compare to Arrivals Today
The busiest day at Ellis Island was April 17, 1907, when 11,747 immigrants passed through the processing center to enter the United States. Nearly 1.3 million immigrants came to the U.S. that year—a record for highest volume of immigrants that held until 1990. Like immigrants ...read more
The Lawless Border With Canada Was Once America's Main Security Concern
Near the westernmost point of the border between the United States and Canada, the Peace Arch straddles the world’s longest undefended international boundary. The inscription atop the monument honors the friendship between two “children of a common mother,” but this was not ...read more
20 Ellis Island Immigration Photos That Capture the Hope and Diversity of New Arrivals
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, large numbers of people from northern and western Europe traveled in overcrowded ships to immigrate to the United States. They arrived to escape famine and religious discrimination, to buy farmland and cash in on the ...read more
Why the United States Has Birthright Citizenship
It’s one of the United States’ best-known rights: automatic citizenship to all born within its borders. But birthright citizenship hasn’t always been the rule of the land in the U.S., and the legal concept has faced plenty of challenges over the century. Here’s the story of ...read more
Why Mexican Americans Say ‘The Border Crossed Us’
Before Texas was a U.S. state, it was its own independent nation where both Mexicans and white immigrants were citizens. But during the nine years that the Republic of Texas existed, Mexicans became outsiders as white settlers made it more difficult for them to vote and hold ...read more
The Trump Family's Immigrant Story
On October 7, 1885, Friedrich Trump, a 16-year-old German barber, bought a one-way ticket for America, escaping three years of compulsory German military service. He had been a sickly child, unsuited to hard labor, and feared the effects of the draft. It might have been illegal, ...read more
How Anne Frank's Family Was Denied a Chance at U.S. Immigration
Desperate to escape Nazi persecution during World War II, Anne Frank’s family tried repeatedly to flee to the United States before going into hiding in 1942, according to research published July 2018. However, the combination of Nazi rule, World War II bombing and American bias ...read more
8 Great Strides for Freedom in U.S. History
The founding fathers set a high standard of ideals for the new nation to live up to back in 1776. But from the very beginning, debate about the best way to do that has been an inherent part of the American experiment. Since its founding, the United States has had both high and ...read more
At Peak, Most Immigrants Arriving at Ellis Island Were Processed in a Few Hours
More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954—with a whopping 1,004,756 entering the United States in 1907 alone, its busiest year. And yet, even during these days of peak immigration, for most passengers hoping to establish new lives in the ...read more
How the US Government Used Propaganda to Sell Americans on World War I
When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson faced a reluctant nation. Wilson had, after all, won his reelection in 1916 with the slogan, “He kept us out of the war.” To convince Americans that going to war in Europe was necessary, Wilson ...read more
When German Immigrants Were America’s Undesirables
In a recent interview, White House chief of staff John Kelly told NPR that undocumented immigrants are “not people that would easily assimilate into the United States, into our modern society.” And he listed a few reasons why: “They’re overwhelmingly rural people,” he said. “In ...read more
Everything You Need to Know About the Mexico-United States Border
The border between the United States and Mexico stretches for nearly 2,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and touches the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The Rio Grande runs along 1,254 miles of the border, but west of El Paso, Texas, the ...read more
The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border
Donald Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border is only the latest in a long history of U.S. militarization of its national boundaries. In fact, America’s southern border—which has shifted multiple times with U.S. expansion—was arguably formed ...read more
The Most Controversial Census Changes in American History
In March 2018, the Commerce Department announced that it would include a question on citizenship in the 2020 census—the first such question to be asked of all U.S. households since 1950, and one that at least 12 states say they would sue over. The census, a ...read more
The Largest Mass Deportation in American History
July is scorching in Mexicali. The Mexican city just across the border from Calexico, California, averages 108 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, but temperatures often swell into the 120s. In 1955, thousands of disoriented people roamed the city’s streets as the sun bore down on ...read more
How a Little-Known ’60s Congressman Unwittingly Upended U.S. Immigration
Debates over immigration policy have assumed center stage in Washington and have even contributed to a government shutdown. President Donald Trump and his conservative allies want to put an end to “chain migration” that he says allows “truly evil” people into the United States. ...read more
How Trump’s Grandparents Became Reluctant Americans
The Past in Colorfeatures the work of colorist Marina Amaral, bringing to life black and white photos with color applied digitally. The German barber, restaurant-owner and property speculator Friedrich Trump and his young wife Elisabeth did not intend to spend their married life ...read more
How Stereotypes of the Irish Evolved From ‘Criminals’ to Cops
New York’s longest-serving police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, is an Irish-American. So is the department’s current commissioner, James O’Neill. Municipal police departments across the country celebrate the role of Irish-American cops with Emerald Societies—and there’s historic ...read more