History of Women in Federal Immigration and Naturalization Service

Regina Stucklen served as one of the Immigration Bureau's first female "matrons" at Ellis Island when it opened. Her duties included helping women and children through the immigration process and supervising their care and oversight. Over time her responsibilities grew, and she led a small team of female employees. Stucklen spoke 7 languages and worked for state and federal immigration services for a combined 25 years.

Tye Leung became the first Chinese-American woman to work for the U.S. government when she joined the Immigration Service. Born into a poor family in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1887, she received an education through free missionary schools. In 1910, she began work as a translator and assistant to the matrons at the Angel Island Immigration Station near San Francisco. There, Tye Leung met and fell in love with Charles Schulze, an immigration inspector of Scottish and German heritage. Because they were considered different races, their marriage was against California law. Afterward, both Tye Leung and Charles Schulze were reportedly pressured to resign from federal employment. Tye Leung continued her career in private industry, and she briefly served as a translator for the Immigration and Naturalization Service again in the 1940s.

During World War I, the federal government grew rapidly, and women received 75% of new civil service appointments in Washington, D.C., and 50% of such positions elsewhere. This resulted in an increase in women’s share of the federal work force from 1918 to 1940, when they held close to 1 in 5 federal jobs.

This Classification Act of 1923 categorized federal job descriptions to try to create equal pay for equal work. However, because women made up the majority of low-paid clerical workers, the law did not bring true equality to men’s and women’s pay. By the 1920s, women held 90% of federal clerical positions. From the 1920s to the late 1930s, women made up an estimated 5% to 8% of professional positions within the federal government. Their specialties included statistics, education, libraries, and science.

Approximately 16 million men and 350,000 women served in the U.S. military during World War II. This massive mobilization created more opportunities for women to join the federal service. At INS’s wartime headquarters, women outnumbered men by more than 3 to 1. Some women hired during the war years earned supervisory positions and stayed in positions of authority after the war ended.

In the 1950s, air travel replaced sea travel as the most common method of entry for visitors to the U.S. The INS created a new corps of port receptionists to greet international travelers, help them assemble their paperwork, and guide them through immigration inspections and interviews at major airports. Requirements for the new hires included fluency in at least one foreign language, a college degree, and “proper bearing, manners, and appearance.” INS targeted the new positions for “pretty girls” who acted as assistants to immigration inspectors. While these positions paid little, over time many young women hired as port receptionists rose within the ranks of INS employees. Margaret M. Smith (left) is one example. Hired as a port receptionist in 1957, she rose to supervisory port receptionist in 1962, and by 1971 served as a supervisory immigrant inspector, a position that required managing and training male and female employees in INS policies and procedures.

The Equal Pay Act established women’s right to equal pay for equal work in private as well as public employment. The act made it illegal for employers to engage in separate and unequal hiring practices that offered women lower wages for performing the same job duties as their male counterparts. President Kennedy signed the bill into law and called it a first step toward greater equality for women.

Marjorie Jackson became the highest-ranking African American woman in the Department of Justice when she became assistant district director of citizenship at the New York District INS Office. Born in Kentucky, she earned a scholarship to Howard University and graduated from Brooklyn Law School in the top 5% of her class. She joined INS as an attorney in 1961. As assistant district director, Jackson managed 23 attorneys and the largest citizenship and naturalization office in the country. She promoted greater computerization at the agency and called for improved efficiency in the citizenship application process. When asked by the press if she supported “women’s lib”, she said, “I am not really much of a women’s lib adherent, but I believe women should be given an opportunity to advance. I have been given that opportunity in the Justice Department.”

The first 4 female graduates of the Border Patrol Academy met all the same qualifications as their male counterparts. Despite some who doubted them, the women shot, ran, and climbed walls in physical tests as well as the men in their class. At the time, Border Patrol was part of the larger INS; since 2003, it has been part of Customs and Border Protection.

When President Reagan’s administration asked Doris Meissner to serve as acting commissioner, she became the first woman to lead the agency, even temporarily. The daughter of immigrants, Meissner worked in non-profits before joining the Department of Justice in 1973. Though she was not an attorney, she rose to the position of deputy associate attorney general from 1977-81. Much of her work focused on immigration policy. At INS, Meissner held the top executive position for several months until the president appointed her successor, Commissioner Alan C. Nelson. Nelson hired Meissner as executive associate commissioner, the third-highest position in the agency, where she remained until 1986.

President Clinton named Doris Meissner to serve as commissioner of INS in 1993, making her the first woman to lead the agency. At the time of her confirmation, the press portrayed Meissner as a moderate who would help prevent illegal immigration. As commissioner, Meissner guided the agency through a period of growing immigration and political partisanship. INS doubled its workforce and tripled its budget; reduced wait times and backlogs in asylum and naturalization; and expanded computerization and digitization of immigration and naturalization processes. Meissner also attempted to tighten security at the borders following the first World Trade Center bombing.

In August 2021, the Senate confirmed Ur Mendoza Jaddou as the first female director of USCIS. Jaddou served as chief counsel at USCIS from 2014-17 and then led DHS Watch, a project of the nonprofit America’s Voice, that focused on good governance and accountability in the immigration system. She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Stanford, as well as a J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. Jaddou’s father immigrated to the U.S. from Iraq, and her mother from Mexico. She grew up in Chula Vista, California.