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Appellants: Edye & Another, Cunard Steamship Company

Appellee: W. H. Robertson

Appellants' Claim: That the Immigration Act of 1882 establishing a tax on immigrants entering the nation was unconstitutional.

Chief Lawyer for Appellants: Edwards Pierrepoint, Phillip J. Joachimsen, George DeForest Lord Chief Lawyer for

Appellee: Samuel Field Phillips, U.S. Solicitor General

Justices for the Court: Samuel Blatchford, Jospeh P. Bradley, Stephen J. Field, Horace Gray, John Marshall Harlan I, Stanley Matthews, Samuel F. Miller, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, William B. Woods

Justices Dissenting: None

Date of Decision: December 8, 1884

Decision: Ruled in favor of the Robertson and the United States by finding that Congress had authority to tax immigrant entry through its power to regulate commerce.

Significance: The decision supported Congress' power to regulate immigration into the country. It also recognized that Congress not only had power to tax through the Tax and Spending Clause of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, but also through the Commerce Clause as well. Congress passed numerous other laws regulating immigration through the following century.

Immigration is the act of people coming to live in a foreign country. Often the term is confused with emigration which refers to people leaving their own country to live in another. Immigration to the United States has increased and declined in various time periods since the early colonists to the New World in the seventeenth century.

Through the nineteenth century until the 1930s the world experienced extensive immigration of peoples from one country to another. Over half of those immigrants came to the United States. Though many reasons spurred people to immigrate to a new country, searching for better jobs and economic opportunity was most common.

Through much of the nineteenth century, the U.S. government made little effort to regulate immigration as the California gold rush of 1849 attracted many Chinese laborers. Neither passports nor visas were required. Though immigration had long been central to American settlement, concern over it grew through the 1850s. Immigrants served as a source of inexpensive labor and it was believed took jobs away from U.S. citizens. Also, many immigrants did not readily blend into U.S. society causing considerable suspicion and fear among the general public. Although an economic depression in the United States in the 1870s greatly slowed immigration, Congress passed it first immigration law in 1875 barring entry to convicts and prostitutes.

With improving economic conditions by 1880, America once again became attractive. Immigration increased dramatically as did public concerns over the effects of immigration. Due to a shortage of farmland and increasing poverty in northwestern Europe, the new wave of immigration included many citizens of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Responding to public pressure, Congress began passing more measures in 1882 to regulate immigration. One bill, the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country. On August 3, 1882, Congress passed another bill, the Immigration Act. The act read,

That there shall be levied, collected and paid a duty of fifty cents for each and every passenger, not a citizen of the United States, who shall come by steam or sail vessel from a foreign port to any port within the United States.

The purpose of the tax, known as "head money," was to establish "a fund to be called the Immigrant Fund . . . to defray the expenses of regulating immigration under this Act and for the care of immigrants . . . for the relief of such as are in distress."

The Dutch Steamer Leerdam

Two months later, on October 2, 1882, the Dutch steamship Leerdam arrived in New York Harbor from Rotterdam, Holland. The ship contained 382 immigrants who planned to settle in the United States. The company of Funch, Edye & Co. which was responsible for the ship in the United States was charged $191 head money on October 12th by William H. Robertson, the customs collector for the port of New York. The company paid the tax so they could enter the harbor, but within a few days appealed the fee to the Secretary of Treasury. The Secretary denied their appeal. Funch next filed a lawsuit U.S. Circuit Court against Robertson claiming the charge was unconstitutional. The court ruled in favor of the customs collection.

When appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the lawsuit was combined with two other similar cases and titled Head Money Cases. The shipping companies raised three arguments in their case. First, Congress exceeded its constitutional powers by regulating immigration with an immigrants' entry tax. Article I of the Constitution stated that Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, . . . and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States; but all duties . . . and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. The companies argued the head tax was not for general welfare and common defense, therefore Article I did not support a head tax. Besides, immigration, the companies argued, is not a business. The United States did not argue the Article I challenge, for it was the Commerce Clause giving Congress power to regulate trade that was used to pass the act. The Commerce Clause, also located in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, gives Congress the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and among the . . . states." Commerce refers to producing, selling, and transporting goods.

Secondly, the companies argued the tax was applied only at ports where immigrants entered the country. As Article I stated, all taxes levied by Congress must be uniformly applied. Therefore, the tax was unconstitutional because it did not apply to all ports.

Thirdly, the Immigration Act was illegal because it conflicted with existing international treaties between the United States and other nations which permitted immigration. They claimed the tax inhibited immigration.

The Business of Immigration

The Court ruled unanimously, 9–0, in favor of the United States. Justice Samuel F. Miller, writing for the Court, stated that Congress clearly had authority to regulate immigration. Since the Court had ruled in a previous case that states do not have that power, then the federal government must. Miller wrote that it would be unthinkable "that the ships of all nations . . . can, without restraint or regulation, deposit here . . . the entire European population of criminals, paupers, and diseased persons, without making any provision to preserve them from starvation . . . even for the first few days after they had left the vessel." Miller also found that indeed immigration was a business and a very profitable one at that. Consequently, it was not unreasonable to expect those profiting from immigration to bear some of the burden in helping those immigrants who were poor and protecting U.S. states and cities from an excessive financial burden.

Secondly, Miller asserted that the tax was uniformly applied since "it operates with the same force and effect in every place where [immigration] . . . is found." The main concern would be that all ships carrying immigrants was taxed the same way and Miller found that to be the situation.

Lastly, Miller could not see where any treaty had been violated since no foreign country had complained. Besides, Congress had the power to change treaties if it so desired anyway, much like changing its own laws. Miller concluded that the purpose of the act "is humane, is highly beneficial to the poor and helpless immigrants and is essential to the protection of the people in whose midst they are deposited by the steamships." The immigrant tax act was upheld.

Immigration Restrictions Continue

From 1881 to 1920, over twenty-three million immigrants came to America from throughout the world. The population of the United States in 1880 was slightly over fifty million. By 1900 the U.S. population had grown by 50 percent to almost 76 million with immigration being a major contributor to the dramatic increase. Given support by the Supreme Court in Head Money Cases, regulation of immigration remained a hot issue before Congress throughout the twentieth century.

Until the mid-1890s most immigrants had arrived in the United States from northern and western Europe. With a major shift then to southern and eastern Europe as a key source, the new immigrants less readily blended into American society. Public concern over immigration escalated again. Quota laws (placing number limits) were passed in the early twentieth century favoring immigration from northern and western Europe. Another wave of immigration came again during the latter part of the twentieth century with many arriving from Asia.