“Insanity and the Immigration Law” (1911)

This article, published in the New York State Hospital Bulletin, discusses proposals for immigration legislation in 1911. Salmon weighs the potential value of placing American psychiatrists on board steamships, instituting mental health certificates as part of the immigration screening process, and increasing resources for the enforcement of preexisting legislation. Salmon affirms the benefits of all these measures but does not assess whether or not immigrants are predisposed to mental illness. In a slight departure from his earlier positions, he claims no statistics adequately compare immigration and “insanity”, although he muses that: 

“armed with the information with which such an inquiry would provide us, it would be possible to go to Congress with definite, well-considered suggestions and at the same time we should be able to meet successfully the objections certain to be advanced by those who oppose any changes in the immigration law which would tend to exclude a larger population of immigrants.” (1)

He also highlights the knock-on effects of immigration exclusion: 

“If any of the broadly restrictive measures which have been advocated should be adopted it is certain that the effect would be seen at once in the proportion of aliens admitted to the New York State hospitals... No more profitable field of effort for those who have enlisted in the cause of the prevention of insanity exists than this.” (2)

Salmon is not completely heartless, however. For him, the main culprit is the steamship companies, who fail to screen immigrants at ports of departure and exploit the lower classes of Europe with promises of American prosperity. If the federal government should choose to expand deportation schemes, he believes it essential that steamship companies take extensive measures to ensure the care and safe passage of deported immigrants.