Ellis Island

Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New Jersey and New York.  It is in Upper New York Bay, east of Liberty State Park and north of Liberty Island.

The federal government assumed control of immigration in 1890 and commissioned a study to determine the best place for the new immigration station in New York Harbor.  It was eventually decided to build the station on Ellis Island.

The first immigration station opened on Ellis Island on January 1, 1892 and its first immigrant was Annie Moore, a 17-year-old girl from Cork, Ireland, who was traveling to meet her parents in the U.S.  On the first day, almost 700 immigrants passed over the docks from ships arriving in New York.  

Over the next year, over 400,000 immigrants were processed at the station. The processing procedure included a series of medical and mental inspection lines, and through this process, some 1% of potential immigrants were deported.

Additional building improvements took place on Ellis Island throughout the mid-1890s.  Over the next five years of operation, the station processed 1.5 million immigrants.

With the passing of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, the number of immigrants being allowed into the United States declined greatly, ending the era of mass immigration.  Following the Immigration Act of 1924, strict immigration quotas were enacted, and Ellis Island was downgraded from a primary inspection center to an immigrant-detention center, hosting only those that were to be detained or deported.

By 1947, shortly after the end of World War II, there were proposals to close Ellis Island due to the massive expenses needed for the upkeep of a relatively small detention center.  Ellis Island closed on November 12, 1954 (69 years ago today), with the departure of its last detainee, Norwegian merchant seaman Arne Pettersen, who had been arrested for overstaying his shore leave.

By the time Ellis Island's immigration station closed, almost 12 million immigrants had been processed by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration.  My grandparents were among the 12 million.