What Happened to 20,000 Chinese The U.S. Betrayed in 1888?

By the middle of the 19th century as increasing numbers of Chinese came to the western part of the U.S. in search of gold, the Chinese were increasingly demonized as threats to white labor. They were vilified further with a major recession in 1873. Eventually, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882 to prohibit the entry of Chinese laborers for 10 years. However, it was renewed for another decade with the Geary Act in 1892, and would not be repealed until 1943.
Chinese who were already in the U.S., either immigrants or American-born who wanted to make visits to China had to complete a Form 430 as the one for actress Anna Mae Wong in 1935 shown below certifying their status so they could reenter the U.S. without going through the procedures used for new immigrants.

              

  Unlike the better known 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act that blocked entry of Chinese, in 1888 the Scott Act denied reentry of around 20,000 Chinese who had left the U.S. to visit China even though they had obtained Certificates of Return before they departed that were not honored.

Chae Chan Ping (n.d.) traveled to China to attend to his father’s death before the Exclusion Act. Ping acquired a Certificate 38 and, on June 2, 1887, he sailed for China after having been a California resident for twelve years. Ping returned on October 7, 1888, and presented his certificate when his ship arrived in San Francisco.

However,  a few days before his arrival, Congress passed yet another amendment to the Chinese Exclusion Act that declared “every certificate heretofore issued in pursuance [of the law] is void and of no effect, and the Chinese laborer claiming admission . . . shall not be permitted to enter the United States.” Ping's attorneys submitted a habeas corpus petition and challenged the decision arguing that Congress could not deport a Chinese citizen entitled to reside in the U.S. under the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 which guaranteed the right of Chinese and U.S. citizens to immigrate between the two countries and outright rejected any attempts to restrict this immigration. The circuit court of northern California denied his entry so the case was taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, Chae Chan Ping v United States, which also denied Ping's right to reenter the U.S. despite the fact he owned property in the U.S.  

On May 13, 1889, Justice Stephen Jay Field, writing the decision for a unanimous court, portrayed Chinese immigrants as a threat to American civilization, since they refused to assimilate into American culture and were outcompeting white laborers. He argued that immigration policy was a right of the federal government free from judicial review since a strict immigration policy, especially in regards to Chinese immigration, was vital to the national interest. Therefore any certification held by Chinese immigrants prior to the passage of the Scott Act, “is held at the will of the government, revocable at any time, at its pleasure.” 

This so-called Chinese Exclusion Case gave rise to the "plenary power doctrine" as the Supreme Court transformed congressional power over immigration “into a power of national self-defense derived from the nation’s inherent sovereignty.” Justice Stephen Field said that the government must “give security against foreign aggression and encroachment,” whether it came “from the foreign nation acting in its national character, or from vast hordes of its people crowding in upon us.”

But what happened to the more than 20,000 Chinese who returned from China in 1888,  only to find the U.S. had slammed the door in their faces.  Not being allowed reentry meant no access to their property  in the U.S. 

Hopefully many or most filed petitions of habeas corpus and found a way to gain reentry, but as far as I could find, no one has documented their fate.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/130/581/