Lew Moy v. the United States (1916) was a landmark Supreme Court case that shaped immigration enforcement at the Texas-Mexico border.
Lew Moy was a Chinese merchant who attempted to enter the United States during the era of Chinese exclusion laws. Despite his status as a merchant – a class that was technically exempt from the harshest restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act – Lew Moy faced significant challenges from immigration authorities at the southern border.
His experience was typical of many Chinese immigrants who, despite having legitimate claims to enter the United States, encountered arbitrary and discriminatory treatment from immigration officials.
Moy’s challenge to the Chinese exclusion laws brought to light how immigration officials wielded considerable power with little oversight.
The Supreme Court’s decision determined that “an alien is in the act of entering the United States until he reaches his interior destination.” The case, which influenced The 1925 Act, gave Border Patrol officers “broad authority to interrogate, detain, and arrest any person they believed to be engaged in the act of illegal immigration.” (Source: Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol by Kelly Lytle Hernandez)
Lew Moy vs. the United States remains a powerful reminder of the intersection between immigration policy, racial discrimination, and border enforcement.
(📷: Mounted guards in 1918 via Border Patrol Museum)
