18 No. 77 JUSTICE In 1882 Congress effectively ended Chinese immigration, taxed every immigrant, and allowed the deportation of any “lunatic,” “idiot,” or “any person unable to take care of himself or herself,” and criminals — except those “convicted of political offenses.”9 This last provision recognized that America welcomed people escaping political persecution. After Czar Alexander III promulgated the May Laws of 1882, Jews began to pour into the United States. That year Congress provided special aid to persecuted Jews, authorizing the Secretary of War to supply twenty-five large tents to “the colony of Russian Hebrew Refugees” in rural Kansas.10 Nearly three million Jews from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe and the Levant arrived between 1880 to 1924. America became the “Goldene Medina,” the new promised land, the new Zion, where Jews could gain citizenship, had full religious freedom, equal political rights, access to public schools and higher education, could enter any profession, live in any city, state, or territory, acquire real property, and had the possibility of prosperity or even huge economic success. Jews and non-Jews came as refugees from war, poverty, discrimination, totalitarianism, and general oppression. The Statue of Liberty welcomed these immigrants with the verses of “The New Colossus,” written by the Jewish American poet, Emma Lazarus: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land. Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” From 1870 to 1924 more than 26 million immigrants entered the United States. Congress increasingly passed laws to prevent immigrants deemed unable to support themselves, unhealthy, immoral, or politically dangerous. An 1885 law prohibited the immigration of foreign laborers under contract, but an amendment allowed contract hiring of “ministers of any denomination” and professors.11 This provision remained in subsequent immigration laws and helped some rabbis and Jewish academics escape the Holocaust, by providing a small loophole from the quota system. In the 1930s some synagogues recruited European rabbis, and some Jewish organizations helped Jewish professors find refuge in the United States.12 9. An Act to Execute Certain Treaty Stipulations Relating to Chinese, ch. 126, 22 Stat. 58 (1882) [Chinese Exclusion Act]; The Immigration Act of Aug. 3, 1882, ch. 376, 2 Stat. 214. 10. Joint resolution authorizing the Secretary of War to loan twenty-five wall tents to the colony of Russian Hebrew Refugees at Cimarron, Foote County, Kansas, Act of July 28, 1882, 22 Stat. 746. Today this is in Gray County. On Jewish migration to Kansas at this time, see https://avotaynuonline.com/2010/07/jewish-agricultural-colonies-inkansas-by-jeffrey-a-marx/ and https://theclio.com/entry/156769 11. Kim E. Nielsen, A DISABILITY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 103 (2012); An act to prohibit the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor in the United States, its Territories, and the District of Columbia, Act of Feb. 26, 1885, ch. 162, 23 Stat. 332, [Also known as the Alien Contract Labor Law]; An Act in amendment to the various acts relative to immigration and the importation of aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor, Act of March 3, 1891, ch. 551, 26 Stat 1084, 1085 § 5. 12. An Act to limit the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States, and for other purposes, Act of May 26, 1924, Pub. L. No. 68-139, 43 Stat. 153, 155 § 4.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgzNzA=