Act of August 3, 1882. SECTION 1. A duty (commonly known as a head tax) of fifty cents is to be levied for every passenger not a citizen of the United States, who comes from any foreign port to any port of the United States by steam or sail vessel. This duty is to be paid to the collector of customs of the port, by the master, owner, agent, or consignee of the vessel within twenty-four hours after entry. The money so collected is to constitute an Immigrant Fund, to be used to defray the expenses of regulating immigration, for the care of immigrants, and the relief of such as are in distress, and in general for carrying out the provisions of the act. This duty is to constitute a lien upon the vessel until paid. SECTION 2. The Secretary of the Treasury is charged with the execution of this act, and with supervision over the business of immigration into the United States. He is authorized to make contracts with state boards and commissions, which are still charged with the duty of examining ships arriving at ports of the state. Any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge shall not be permitted to land. SECTION 3. The Secretary of the Treasury is empowered to make provisions to protect immigrants from fraud and loss, and to carry out the law. SECTION 4. All foreign convicts, except those convicted of political offenses, shall be returned to the nations to which they belong and from which they came. The expense of returning all persons not permitted to land is to be borne by the owners of the vessel in which they came. SECTION 5. This act shall take effect immediately. The salient points of this law are the imposition of a federal head tax, the beginning of a list of excluded classes, the return of excluded aliens, at the expense of the shipowners, and the assignment of the immigration business to the Secretary of the Treasury, the actual work of examination, however, still being done by the state boards. The next act bearing on immigration was Section 22 of the act of June 26, 1884, and was designed to correct a discrimination in favor of land transportation contained in Section 1 of the act of 1882. It provided that until the provisions of this section should be made applicable to passengers coming into the United States by land carriage, they should not apply to passengers coming in vessels trading exclusively between ports of the United States and Canada and Mexico.