Cite as: 523 U. S. 767 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
nal Island. In the end, the United States enlarged Ellis Island by roughly 24.5 acres, for a total area some nine times the original.
Ironically, however, as the land rose immigration fell. Although more than 12 million people disembarked at Ellis Island from 1892 to 1954, arrivals dropped from a high point of roughly 5,000 daily in 1907 to only 200 a day in 1954, and in November of that year the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) closed the Island station.
Soon after immigration was thus diverted from the Island, the United States General Services Administration (GSA) classified the property as surplus and entertained various proposals for using the Island as a home for educational institutions, as a clinic for alcoholics, as a historical site for public recreation, and as a facility for the mentally retarded. Prospects for the Island's future were clouded, however, by the fact that New York and New Jersey each carried the Island on its tax rolls and announced its intention to collect taxes if a private owner took over the Island. Although the GSA noted sanguinely that "[t]he question of whether the property will be subject to taxes by the State of New Jersey when it becomes eligible for taxation is one to be resolved between the State of New Jersey and the grantee after the disposal of the property has been consummated by the United States," N. J. Exh. 117 (letter from Administrator, GSA, to Sen. Clifford P. Case, dated Jan. 28, 1958), there was clear reason to fear that the tax dispute would kill any disposition the United States might like to make. In 1960, the Council of State Governments tried to mediate the jurisdictional dispute, but negotiations simply came to impasse. N. J. Exh. 134 (letter from Regional Director, Council of State Governments, to Associate General Counsel, GSA, dated July 28, 1960).
After the GSA had offered the Island for sale on the commercial market several times, the Secretary of the Interior decided in 1964 that the Government should stop trying to
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