William Roszell
The first trip our group took was an exciting adventure that provided information for our research project. My focus of the study was on the operating procedures at the El Paso immigration station. I examined four files that benefited our overall group project. These files focused on the correspondence between multiple Immigration stations regarding Rule 16 of the Chinese Exclusion act. The file proposed changes and omissions to the wording of the rule — another record held correspondence from Galveston, Texas, and problems with Chinese entering through San Francisco. Case File 53,775-177 was the expenditure report for the Immigration station at Angel Island. The Angel Island case file did not directly impact our project but was able to assist with other groups. The Case File 53,775-178 provided immigration interrogation files from New Orleans, Ellis Island, and Pennsylvania. These documents provided direct communication and questions posed by Immigration officials for immigrants coming through these stations.
The case file 53,775-202A and 202B provided me with correspondence between Thomas Weiss, who was collecting and transporting immigrants who were being deported and taking them to their deportation stations. This file provided me with the names of individuals and locations that I can hopefully use to get more information with regards to El Paso’s immigration station.