Papers, Please: The Chinese Certificate Canvass
Federal inspectors sweep Washington to find Chinese residents without the new certificates, warning that those lacking papers face arrest and deportation.
The Chinese certificates have all been issued, and a canvass is being made by the custom house officials and Chinese inspectors to ascertain those who have failed to procure them. In the neighborhood of 2,000 certificates have been issued in this state, and Chinese without them will be liable to arrest and deportation. Some of those who have obtained certificates have lost or mislaid them, but can on proper showing obtain duplicates and thus avoid arrest.
“Chinese without them will be liable to arrest and deportation.”
The bureaucratic machinery of exclusion—registration, documentation, deportation—was already in full swing in 1891 Washington. The demand that immigrants carry papers and prove their right to remain is a direct ancestor of today's debates over ID checks and deportation.
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