Tension at the Border: The Hop-Picking Seasonal Migration
Federal immigration officials express concern over British Columbia Indigenous people crossing into Washington state for the seasonal hop harvest.
Thomas M. Fisher, United States immigration agent of Port Townsend, was in the city yesterday. Mr. Fisher received information here that a large number of British Columbia Indians were in the habit of coming over here during the hop-picking season and working in the fields, but that they go back as soon as the season is over. 'I regard this matter as of great importance. It is in direct conflict with the alien contract labor law, and I have wired to Washington City today for instructions as to how to proceed.'
“It is in direct conflict with the alien contract labor law, and I have wired to Washington City today for instructions as to how to proceed.”
This item illustrates the rigid, colonial enforcement of borders that ignored long-standing seasonal migration patterns of Indigenous peoples across the Salish Sea. It captures the era's hostile bureaucratic push toward exclusion, a precursor to the more draconian immigration laws that would follow.
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