Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/341

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IMMIGRATION AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH
337

ceding cause acts only as an exciting agent in bringing to fruition what was previously latent. It is to be noted that this decision does not question the diagnosis, but it states the opinion of the lawyer who framed it that the existing condition of manic-depressive insanity did not depend on causes prior to landing. In the light of this decision a warrant was refused for the arrest and deportation of the alien in question. As a consequence deportation is impossible in a class of cases which formerly supplied about 350 deportations annually.

On February 25, 1912, Mariase Lipschutz, aged 25, arrived from Russia on the steamer Campanello. On February 28 she was certified by the medical officers at Ellis Island as being feeble-minded. On March 28 she was ordered landed by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, for the avowed object of visiting a sick relative. Her visit still continues.

On June 25, 1912, Rewke Palayes, aged 11 years, arrived from Russia on the steamer Rotterdam. A special certificate of imbecility was issued by the medical officers at Ellis Island, this carrying with it a fine of $100 for the steamship which brought her. On July 13 she was ordered landed by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The immigration law declares that minor children of naturalized citizens, if these children are dwelling in the United States, shall be considered as citizens. The father of this girl was a naturalized citizen. The Secretary contended that "constructively" she became a resident when she had left her foreign domicile, even though she had not even been admitted into the United States. She was ordered landed.

An exactly parallel case was decided in an opposite manner in an

French Canadian Family entering from Montreal.