"They needed no permission to come. They only needed reasonable health and $25, enough to survive while looking for work. The government didn't even write down their names — that was left to the purser on the boat that brought them." Yeah, it was a great system: everyone who wanted to come to America had to pay for their own transport on a legal shipping line, to an isolated island, where they were face a battery of health test and if they were found to be sick or weak, they would be rejected and sent back,  on the expense of the company that brought them here. They would bay for all the healthcare they received at the facility and if they couldn't afford it,  then the shipping line would be stuck with the bill. Naturally, the shipping lines themselves starting sorting and rejecting immigrants in order to protect their bottom line. Once the prospective new Americans made it unto the mainland, legally, they would be granted no government sponsored welfare.... Yeah, sounds good.....