Was migrating way easier back then (e.g., people can just board a ship with their bags to the US and settle there)? What makes migrating to most countries so difficult now?
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It’s expensive enough to move down the street. You have to pack up all your possessions and then transport them to the new place.
Now imagine moving to a whole new country.
You also have to find a place to live, find a new job, find new friends, do all this in a foreign culture where you might not even know the language, far from your loved ones and the place you’ve called home all your life.
Even within the US, where traveling between the states is unrestricted, most people live in the state they were born in.
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Throughout history various places have time to time required people to have some sort of permission or pay some tax to travel between kingdoms or states, but once you got there, you could generally stay. It wasn’t a big problem because there weren’t so many people, and travel was hard.
Until the 19th century, you could pretty much just go anywhere and live where you wanted subject to the whims of local kings and whatnot. Individual ports might turn away ships if they had a lot of sick people.
In the 1860’s, the US entered a treaty with China that allowed the US to suspend immigration from China, which they did in the 1880’s due to anti-Chinese sentiment (we got rid of that law after WWII).
Countries really started making more modern-style immigration laws and requiring travel documents for cross-border travel during and after WWI. The US started to funnel immigrants through centers like Ellis Island, but the rules were fairly lenient. (As an aside, Ellis Island is a fantastic place to visit; if I recall correctly, they say that over 40% of US citizens can trace their ancestry to an immigrant that entered the US in the 1920’s).
During the 1920’s, the League of Nations (which was later replaced by the UN) held a conference to discuss matters of travel ticketing and travel documents. They came up with a booklet with some suggestions, but no formal agreements. Nonetheless, countries started issuing passports and treaties about travel between nations.
Then, after WWII, the restrictions became much tighter. The process became increasingly more complicated over time, quotas were added. Part of this was because due to the cold war and fear of foreign spies, part was just anti-immigrant feelings, and ultimately air travel made ports of entry all over the country that required a larger centralized bureaucracy to manage an increasing number of foreign travelers.
In 1980, members the UN formally set international standards for passports.
What we have today is the product of 200 years of evolution in immigration laws, 2 world wars, the cold war, and “the war on terror”.
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Unchecked immigration caused massive crashes in wages where they showed up, leading to locals suffering economic hardships. Since the immigrants didn’t mind being paid less than their peers because they were new and broke, employers preyed on them for cheap labor.
Cue “they took urrrr jawbbsss”
Also, immigration can a cause a serious decline in local food supply if not carefully managed.
And lastly, some nations are extremely broken politically and logistically. There are some nations where crime is not policed at all. Those people flee to another nation for a safer life, but some of the behaviors they think are mild are downright felonies in their new hosts. Which then causes “economic flight” where wealthy taxpayers abandon areas with high immigration quotas to avoid having to argue over what is safe or tolerable. They just move to where it is not tolerated, rather than stay and help through compassion and charity.
In the past, Canada and the US were actively recruiting immigrants.
Less so now (but Canada is welcoming record numbers of immigrants)
More paperwork and more bureaucracy now
Before the Income Tax Era, you could pretty much go wherever you want with a few exceptions for specific periods of racial and ethnic animosity.
Today, there are far greater restrictions on and costs associated with immigration. Depending on what type of status you seek there are extensive background checks, sponsorship requirements and means testing involved. The ostensible reason is to ensure national security and a robust, healthy economy.
I feel like a lot of things were easier back then. I’ll sometimes look up a famous business person and find that their great great grandfather immigrated to the USA and started a railroad. Or opened a papermill on a big piece of lakefront property. Nobody does that anymore.
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