The result has been to divert the travel to vessels entering the ports of British Columbia. whence passage into the United States at obscure points along the Dominion boundary is easy. A very considerable number of Chinese laborers have during the past year entered the United States from Canada and Mexico. The officers of the Treasury Department and of the Department of Justice have used every means at their command to intercept this immigration. out the impossibility of perfectly guarding our extended frontier is apparent. The Dominion Government collects a head tax of $50 from every Chinaman entering Canada. and thus derives a considerable revenue from those who only use its ports to reach a position of advantage to evade our exclusion laws. There seems to be satisfactory evidence that the business of passing Chinamen through Canada to the United States is organized and quite active. The Department of Justice has construed the laws to require the return of any Chinaman found to be unlawfully in this country to China as the country from which he came. notwithstanding the fact that he came by way of Canada. but several of the district courts have. in cases brought before them. overruled this view of the law and decided that such persons must be returned to Canada. This construction robs the aw of all effectiveness. even if the decrees could be executed. for the men returned can the next day recross our border. But the only appropriation made is for sending them back to China. and the Canadian officials refuse to allow them to reinter Canada without the payment of the $50 head tax. I recommend such legislation as will remedy these defects in the law. In previous messages I have called the attention of Congress to the necessity of so extending the jurisdiction of the United States courts as to make triable therein Any felony committed while in the act of violating a law of the United States.
Keywords matched
immigration head tax