From Borders to Brothels: Sexual Policing in U.S. Immigration Enforcement, 1875 to 1917
Creators: name: Gearty, Lauren
Publisher: name: Brandeis University
Year: 2026

description: From Borders to Brothels: Sexual Policing in U.S. Immigration Enforcement, 1875 to 1917
description: A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts
description: By Lauren Gearty
description: Today, immigration law enforcement might bring to mind immigration raids, arrests, and deportations. It might bring to mind the acronym ICE, which is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s law enforcement agency tasked with preserving national security and public safety. But in the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth century, immigration law enforcement looked very different than it does today. Before 1924, there was no dedicated immigration police force in place. Instead, immigration officers, most often with no formal legal training, made decisions about the meaning of the federal immigration statutes and who fell within their scope. These officers wielded tremendous power. They often acted in a number of capacities all at the same time, including investigator, examiner, stenographer, prosecutor, and decision-maker. And in no area did these officers of the rising U.S. administrative state wield their power with greater impact than when they turned their attention to sex and sexuality.
description: This dissertation examines the enforcement methods developed and implemented in connection with U.S. immigration laws relating to immigrant sexuality during the early years of federal immigration control, from 1875 to 1917. It is based on a wide range of primary source documents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service including legal case records, interrogation records, reports, statistics, correspondence, and other sources across multiple immigration stations. Common enforcement methods included undercover detective work in brothels and houses of prostitution, interrogation of non-citizen women about their past sexual histories, photographing the women, mandatory detention measures for pregnant immigrants, sex trafficking patrols along the southern border, and summary legal proceedings. Because how immigration officers tried to decide if an immigrant fell inside the law or not varied according to race, gender, local conditions, economic interests, and other factors, each chapter of this dissertation is based on specific immigrant experiences, which are then analyzed in relation to larger histories and overall institutional growth and change within the federal immigration regime.
description: The specific enforcement efforts examined in these pages include those aimed at suspected female prostitutes from China arriving in California, European women pregnant out of wedlock seeking entry in New York, female immigrants of various nationalities working in brothels in New York City, and Mexican women suspected of immoral sexual activity along the southern border. Together these case studies reveal that enforcement methods between 1875 and 1917 were often ad hoc, border focused, invasive, racially motivated, largely discretionary, plagued with difficulties, and rarely challenged on appeal. Despite these regional differences, there developed during this formative period certain fundamental immigration enforcement methods marked by enormous discretion to assess morality, undercover investigations into claimed sexual relationships, widespread intimidation and racism, and summary legal proceedings, all of which still exist in related forms today.