April 17, 1907: Ellis Island processed 11,747 immigrants, the largest total of any day in the station’s more than six decades of operation. In that busy 1907 calendar year, just over one million immigrants arrived at Ellis Island. Of those arrivals, 6,752 were rejected and deported. For the United States overall, 12,432 immigrant arrivals were deported in 1907. In most of these cases, immigration officials excluded arrivals for being deemed unlikely to be able to support themselves economically or because of labor contracts. The unilateral nature of the decision in each case made it highly possible for the prejudices of individual immigration agents to impact case decisions. As historian Ronald H. Bayor emphasizes, “Although those deported always remained a relatively low percentage of arrivals, they still included many thousands of individuals who often had to return without any relatives in the old country, without funds, or to situations dangerous to their lives.” He adds that “At Ellis Island, if one family member was rejected, or hospitalized, or delayed in some other manner, other family members faced an emotional decision of what to do.”
Recommended reading to learn more:
Citations: Harlan D. Unrau, Historic Resource Study (Historical Component): Ellis Island Statue of Liberty National Monument New York – New Jersey, vol. 1 (n.p.: National Park Service, 1984), 202, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433044416331; Ronald H. Bayor, Encountering Ellis Island: How European Immigrants Entered America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 39-40, https://archive.org/details/encounteringelli0000bayo; “Ellis Island’s Busiest Day,” New York Historical Society, April 17, 2014, https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/ellis-islands-busiest-day; George Grantham Bain, “Immigrants, Ellis Island,” photograph (Ellis Island, NY and NJ, c. 1910), https://lccn.loc.gov/2012646353.
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