In 1874, Justice Field, riding circuit, heard an appeal from a denial of a writ of habeas corpus by the California courts. The petitioners, twenty-two young women from China, had been excluded from landing under a state statute that prohibited the entry of “lewd and debauched women.” To determine whether the women were “lewd” or “debauched,” the Commissioner of Immigration had asked them about their husbands.

Reversing, Justice Field denied that the state’s police power extended so far as to regulate who may enter their territory.

In words that echo loudly 150 years later, Justice Field wrote,

Where the evil apprehended by the state from the ingress of foreigners is that such foreigners will disregard the laws of the state, and thus be injurious to its peace, the remedy lies in the more vigorous enforcement of the laws, not in the exclusion of the parties.