Oli, until 1924, any white person who could get to Ellis Island on his/her own, and could pass a rudimentary health check, could stay in the US legally--didn't even have to become a naturalized citizen. Quite a few Mafiosi came here without going through Ellis Island for one reason or another. Some, like Carlos Marcello, came here from Tunis, which had a large Sicilian population a century ago.

The government tried to deport Marcello, but he had plenty of legal talent to prevent deportation. All he had to do was to show up at the INS office in New Orleans quarterly. But, at his first visit in 1961, after the Kennedy Administration took over, he was met by federal marshals who found that he had a fake Guatemalan passport. They accused him of entering the US illegally from that country and immediately flew him to Guatemala City. The authorities, tipped off by INS, declared him persona non grata and dumped him in a jungle over the border in Honduras, expecting him to die there. He made his way back to the US, where he was indicted for entering the country illegally and for evading taxes. That was the source of a grudge he had against the Kennedys, which some believe resulted in the JFK assassination.