I left my native England in 1955 and emigrated to America to be married to my fiancé who was born and raised in Ohio. When I applied for a visa I learned I had to have a sponsor and fulfill certain requirements before it would be granted.
I had to pay for Scotland Yard to investigate my character and background and also for several physicals to make sure I didn't have and never had TB and was healthy.
Meanwhile, my fiancé had to provide a sworn affidavit promising to marry me upon my arrival, and because he hadn't been working long enough to be my sponsor, his parents had to file an affidavit swearing to support me financially if for some reason we didn't marry. This was to protect the American taxpayer from having to support me.
My fiancé and I started trying to figure out where we could go to live if I was rejected, but after everything was checked out I was accepted and I received my alien registration card. (It wasn't called a green card in those days.)
Upon arrival in the U.S. I learned all aliens had to register every January with the Department of Immigration. This was a very simple process and didn't cost a penny. You went to any post office in the U.S. and asked for an alien registration form which questioned where you were and what you were doing. After filling it out you handed it back to the postal clerk. If you couldn't get out for some reason, someone could pick up the postcard for you and return it.
If you didn't register sometime in January, the government would come looking for you. This registration had to be done every January until you became a citizen.
Incidentally, I couldn't apply for citizenship for about eight years after entry until I had proved myself.
I didn't mind any of this as I wanted to live in a country that was not chaotic and where one of the government's main jobs was to protect the people to the best of its ability from disease and crime.
This process of immigration was conducted very well without computers and worked very well for decades.
Then some groups decided they knew better than the government who could come to this country and started smuggling large numbers of people in so now we have chaos.
With legal immigration, the government knew who was in the country, where they were located, and where they were from. Is that too much to expect?
Gertrude Betsy Finch
Lewes
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