The purpose of the medical exam is to ensure that an applicant is “not inadmissible to the United States on public health grounds.
Accordingly, an alien is inadmissible if he or she has a communicable disease of public health significance, lacks the required vaccines, is a drug abuser or addict, or has a physical or mental disorder with a behavior, or history of a behavior, that is a threat to “the property, safety, or welfare of the alien or others”.
[4] The vaccination requirement includes the following vaccinations: Mumps, Measles, Rubella, Tetanus, diphtheria, Meningococcal disease, Pneumococcal disease, Haemophilus influenzae type B, Rotavirus, Varicella, Influenza, Hepatitis A and B, Pertussis, and Polio.
The medical exam guidelines are created by the Center for Disease Control’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.
[3] Statutory health exclusion began with the Immigration Act of 1891, which barred “‘persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease’”.
[4] The law also placed responsibility on the steamship companies to “vaccinate, disinfect, and medically examine emigrants to certify their health prior to departure.”.
[8] The increasing regulation was tied to the rise of bacteriology, the use of eugenics to protect against “racial degeneracy,” and the expansion of the federal government’s involvement in immigration.
[8] This was done by a Congressional amendment that added exclusion based on “’infection with the etiological agent for acquired immune deficiency syndrome’”.
[4] Vaccinations were required for “nine ‘vaccine-preventable diseases’” including: “mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus and diphtheria toxoids, pertussis, influenza type B and hepatitis B”.
[6] The following chalk markings were used: B=back; C= conjunctivitis; CT= trachoma; E= eyes; F= face; Ft= feet; G= goiter; H= heart; K= hernia; L= lameness; N=neck ; P= physical and lungs; Pg= pregnancy; Sc= scalp; S= senility; x=mental defect; X-circle=definite signs of mental defect; hand, measles, nails, skin, temperature, vision, voice were written out in full.
[10] As many as “50 to 100 per cent of immigrants who enter the inspection plant are questioned by the medical examiner in order to elicit signs of mental disease or defect”.
[11] The “immigrants traveling third class, or steerage, were subjected to a medical inspection designed to weed out the diseased or mentally unfit once they arrived at the entry port”.
[5] Excludable diseases were those that were more common among Asians, yet treatable and not a threat to the American public, such as uncinariasis, filariasis, and clonorchiasis.
The test was given to “almost all immigrants coming into West Coast ports, but only sporadically from newcomers arriving on the Atlantic seaboard or via Mexico and Canada”.
[13] At the border, “entrants were stripped naked, showered with kerosene, examined for lice and nits, and vaccinated against smallpox”.