1891 – Congress Establishes the First Federal Administrative Agency for the Regulation of Immigration

“In 1891 Congress established the first federal administrative agency
for the regulation of immigration in the Treasury Department. Congress
later refined and strengthened the control of immigration. Statutes that
restricted immigration according to increasingly stringent standards of
admissibility—terminating the period of free and unlimited immigration
by the early twentieth century—were made possible by the Supreme Court’s
position that the exclusive constitutional power to regulate
immigration resided in Congress.”