On July 26, 1917, the joint order of the Departments of State and Labor required all non-Americans wanting to enter the United States to hold a visa issued by a U.S. consular official—to clarify their purpose of visit to the United States, and to verify their identity, by presenting a government-issued certificate of identity, typically a passport. Neither the Armistice nor the Treaty of Versailles terminated the visa obligation imposed on foreigners at the U.S. border. On his way back from the Paris Peace Conference, Woodrow Wilson urged the postwar continuation of the visa system.
This article highlights the Wilsonian assumption embedded in the U.S. visa system. Woodrow Wilson understood the power of state-based documentation and nation-based identification. Persons without a government-issued certificate of identity found themselves anomalous in the post-WWI world. The U.S. visa system, never removed from the U.S. border since its wartime installation, has made it extremely difficult for undocumented persons to enter the United States lawfully.
The wartime introduction and postwar continuation of the visa system marked critical developments in the history of U.S. immigration and foreign policy. From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, the U.S. government built the national apparatus of immigration control. At the U.S. border, immigrant inspectors came to adopt a standard method for identifying foreign individuals, classifying them into different categories, and organizing information as to their admission or rejection. Over time, the list of criteria that was being used for immigrant inspection became longer, including age, sex, family, race, health, and occupational status. Meanwhile, some advocates of immigration restriction demanded the introduction of pre-departure inspection of intending immigrants. However, there was almost no discussion in Congress about passport and visa requirements before the United States joined WWI. From 1917 to 1919, the visa system was designed and implemented by the Wilson administration to safeguard the American nation against its enemies—Germans during WWI and Bolsheviks and other radicals after WWI. In favor of its postwar continuation, Wilson noted that it would also prevent the admission of persons undesirable because of their “origin and affiliations,” hinting its usefulness for immigration restriction. With the establishment of the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, the visa system became a tool for the U.S. government to limit the entry of non-Americans primarily based on their “origin and affiliations.” In the early 1920s, U.S. visa regulations quickly developed into one of the most stringent of their kind in the world.
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