Indeed such supervision and care as immigrants received was provided
by the various States. Boston, New York, Baltimore, and other ports of
entry, found helpless hordes left at their doors. They were the prey
of loan sharks and land sharks, of fake employment agencies, and every
conceivable form of swindler. Private relief was organized, but it
could reach only a small portion of the needy. About three-fourths of
the immigrants disembarked at the port of New York, and upon the State
of New York was imposed the obligation of looking after the thousands
of strangers who landed weekly at the Battery. To cope with these
conditions the State devised a comprehensive system and entrusted its
enforcement to a Board of Commissioners of Immigration, erected
hospitals on Ward's Island for sick and needy immigrants, and in 1855
leased for a landing place Castle Garden, which at once became the
popular synonym for the nation's gateway. Here the Commissioners
examined and registered the immigrants, placed at their disposal
physicians, money changers, transportation agents, and advisers, and
extended to them a helping hand. The Federal Government was
represented only by the customs officers who ransacked their baggage.

In 1875 the Federal Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional
for a State to regulate immigration. "We are of the opinion," said the
Court, "that this whole subject has been confided to Congress by the
Constitution; that Congress can more appropriately and with more
acceptance exercise it than any other body known to our law, state or
national; that, by providing a system of laws in these matters
applicable to all ports and to all vessels, a serious question which
has long been a matter of contest and complaint may be effectively and
satisfactorily settled."[51] Congress dallied seven years with this
important question, and was finally forced to act when New York
threatened to close Castle Garden. In 1882 a Federal immigration law