Ellis Island stark contrast to welcome immigrants get today

Ellis Island was once the busiest immigrant inspection station in the United States; from 1892 to 1924, nearly 12 million immigrants arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey were processed here

An estimated 20 million immigrants were processed at Ellis Island before its closure; according to an estimate by The History Channel, about 40% of the population of the US can trace their ancestry to immigrants who arrived in America at Ellis Island

Nearly every day, for two decades (1900-1924), the Registry Room was filled with new arrivals waiting to be inspected and registered by immigration officers

There were many poignant stories of the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island; this Armenian family escaped violence in Turkey in 1915 by sailing to the US and ultimately settling in Philadelphia

The National Origins Formula was established in the 1920s to preserve American homogeneity by promoting immigration from NW Europe; in 1965 LBJ eliminated the de facto discrimination against non-NW Europeans, Asians, as well as other ethnic groups

1984 view of Ellis Island and the World Trade Center; today Ellis Island is part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and is accessible to the public only by ferry ($23.50)

With the 1921 Emergency Quota Act, the number of immigrants allowed into the US declined greatly; following the Immigration Act of 1924, strict quotas were enacted and Ellis Island became an immigrant-detention center for those to be detained or deported

Only 2% of arriving immigrants were denied entry; the main reasons for exclusion were the diagnosis of a contagious disease, or a legal inspector was concerned an immigrant would become a public charge or illegal contract laborer

It costs $65 to research genealogy records at Ellis Island but you can search the database (https://heritage.statueofliberty.org/) for free online

Most of the museum was static requiring lots of reading (like here about the Korean community in Houston); famous names to pass through Ellis Island include Bob Hope, Houdini, Hitchcock, Irving Berlin and Einstein