Author: Sean Thomas

Sean Thomas

On Friday November 15, we took our last class visit to the National Archives. Sadly however, even though we were the most prepared for this trip, it turned out to be the least productive. However, I was able to find four case files that are useful to our group, though three of them were rather plain, and contained no real information we hadn’t gotten from previous files. One file that was given to me, however, was on Dr. Issac Rivera, a Mexican citizen who wished to temporarily enter the United States to get supplies for his doctor’s office in Mexico, and to have a tonsillitis operation for his son. Dr. Rivera was a seemingly well-educated ed man, which makes it interesting that El Paso rejected his request for a temporary admittance. He was listed as likely to become an LPC, though he didn’t state an intention to stay in the US.^[1] However, the United States government did not always deny the requests of non-American to enter the US temporarily in order to seek medical treatment. This was often the case for immigrants who worked on American owned ships. If a sailor was sick or injured while on the ship they worked on was docked at an American port, they would be allowed to receive treatment at American hospitals.^[2] One example of someone allowed into the US for treatment through El Paso was Wong-Fook Gem, a Chinese man who had contracted syphilis. In his case, he was granted entry into the United States in order to receive medical treatment for his syphilis, though he was given an escort the entire time.^[3] What we can see from these files is that immigration services had no real protocol for these cases, and because of that, many of the decisions to allow entry or not for those seeking medical treatment was left to the individual inspectors. This is a major trend that can be seen all throughout our research. Because of a lack of regulation that covers certain cases, such as in instances where non-American citizens sought entry into the US to receive medical treatment, the responses by American immigration officials who are left with making the decisions, vary widely.  

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^[1] File 54,438-093, accession E9, Subject Correspondence, 1906-1932, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC)

^[2] File 55,391-973, accession E9, Subject Correspondence, 1906-1932, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC)

^[3] File 55,740-024, accession E9, Subject Correspondence, 1906-1932, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC)

Sean Thomas

For all intents and purposes, this second trip to the National Archives was much more successful then the first in terms of the number of useful documents that I was able to find. Compared to the first time, I was able to go through documents much more quickly and found the information I was looking for with less effort. One of the files that I found which was relevant to our group’s topic was about a man named Geronimo Campo. Geronimo was a Mexican immigrant to the United States who lived here legally for four years. However, he was arrested on charges of Burglary in 1920, during which time he received a medical examination which showed he had syphilis. What is interesting about this file is that while committing burglary within five years of immigrating to the US would usually be enough of a reason to deport someone, in this case the officials involved at least seemed to be alright with just giving him one to two years of jail time. What appears to be the main reason for Geronimo’s deportation was the fact that he had syphilis, which he claims he contracted after arriving in the US. Although it is not right to make claims based on only one case file, what this one in particular indicates is that at least for some immigration officers, being afflicted by syphilis is a worse crime then burglary.  

Assistant Secretary of Labor, El Paso, TX., Commisioner of Immigration, New Orleans, LA., May 29, 1920, File 54,808-97, accession E9, Subject Correspondence, 1906-1932, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC).

Sean Thomas

On Friday September 27^th, our class went on our first trip to the National Archives in DC for our research project. It was an incredible experience and was the first time that I have done archival research and been able to go through historical documents. However, while doing the work was very interesting to me, the result of my research was rather dry. This was my first time doing work in an archive, so It took me a while to get into the groove of searching through documents. One mistake that I now understand I made was that I looked at every file in order that was in my box. In the future however, I will first pull out the files that we as a group requested because those ones we know will contain useful information. However, reading through all of the files resulted in me only making it through one box, and only finding one file that we could use.

The one relevant case file I did find however was a very interesting one. It involved an eighteen year old Mexican man named Frank Miller. He had a passport, and legally crossed the border into the US everyday in order to work, returning to Mexico at night where he lived. However, one day he decided not to return to Mexico, which is why he was deported. What connects this file to our case was the fact that another reason given for his deportation was the fact that Frank had Syphilis, a disease that was used as the basis for deportation and denial of entry.

Assistant Commissioner General, New York, N.Y., to Inspector at El Paso, Texas., 1918, File 54395- 73, accession E9, Subject Correspondence, 1906-1932, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85 (National Archives, Washington, DC).