The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited Chinese laborers from sending for their families to join them in the United States. But merchants and U.S. citizens were allowed to do so.
So each time a member of those groups returned to China for a visit, they often reported the birth of a son or two to the immigration authorities when they came back. The claim created immigration slots, which could be used to bring another Chinese to America.
a possibility from a favorable combination of circumstances
With the city’s birth records destroyed, some Chinese saw an opportunity. They claimed that they had been born in San Francisco and that they had a wife and so many sons in China.
When a “paper son” bought an identity, he also purchased a coaching book or notes that provided both the questions and answers that might be asked during immigration processing.
a sentence having no coordinate clauses or subordinate clauses
A simple sentence tells one complete idea. It has one independent clause,
or a subject and a verb. A simple sentence begins with a capital letter and
ends with an end punctuation mark.