Ellis Island In the 1892 more than twelve million people entered the United States through Ellis Island. Four out of every ten Americans claim ancestors who came through the place. While many people probably recall Ellis Island as the beginning of a new life of economic opportunity, the passage through its doors to America also meant a choice to become and American freely taken, and for the most part, freely given. For this reason, Ellis Island, …showed first 75 words of 972 total…

…showed last 75 words of 972 total…a stage on which the terms of American immigration law were acted out. Once this is grasped everything that happened there can be understood. The questions asked by legal and medical inspectors, the provision of hospitalization and contagious disease units, deportation, and the Special Boards of Inquiry were bureaucratic solutions to legal requirements. Ellis Island's changing function from an admission center to a deportation and detention center after 1924 also resulted from changes in immigration law.