Undocumented Persons

History of Undocumented Persons in the United States

This is not a new problem, however. Even before the American Revolution, local and colonial governments identified persons who were or could be within their jurisdictions unlawfully and then provided for processes through which such persons could be detained, punished, and removed. For example, the South Carolina legislature in 1690 passed a set of slave codes that forbade any slave from leaving his plantation without his owner's written permission; any slave without such a “pass” could be regarded as a runaway. Slaves who ran away could be beaten, branded, or, after several offenses, put to death. Virginia's legislature passed similar rules in 1705. Until the abolition of slavery, runaway slaves were the largest group of undocumented persons in the United States despite a constitutional provision to address the problem as well as two major Fugitive Slave Acts in 1793 and 1850.

Before and after the Civil War, in 1862, 1875, and then in 1882, Congress passed legislation directed against Chinese immigrants, envisioning them as “coolie slaves,” “enslaved prostitutes,” and “cheap labor,” respectively. The Chinese Exclusion Act established a legislative precedent against Asian immigrants: Under the Gentlemen's Agreement in 1907, Korean and Japanese laborers were excluded; the Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924 created and reinforced an “Asiatic Barred Zone” from which no one could come lawfully to the United States; and the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 excluded Filipino immigrants. Although the Chinese Exclusion Act was formally repealed in 1943, numerical limits against Asian immigrants were preserved in the Immigration Act of 1952 and only repealed under the Immigration Amendments of 1965. Despite all of these laws, a substantial number of Asian immigrants continued to land in the United States unlawfully: They misrepresented their identities, often through false papers, or they evaded immigration authorities entirely, entering the United States “without inspection.” Some historians have estimated that as many as one fourth of the Chinese American population before World War II may have been undocumented, although many did have documents, albeit false ones.

...