The treatment and conditions that immigrants were forced to endure in coming to America were definitely brutal and were certain to dishearten these people. At the time, immigration was extremely healthy for America and was a crucial part of expansion and production. Immigrants could be seen as an asset to America. So, why were the conditions so bad? The amount of work a single, healthy immigrant worker could put in was extremely valuable. A horde of them could accomplish massive feats. Wouldn’t it be in the best interests of Americans (more specifically, the businesses who employed a large number of these immigrants) to have at least semi-decent conditions for these workers so that they would be in shape and ready to go to work and, by extension, earn those Americans a lot of money? Of course, humanely, the conditions should have been better from the get-go but I would think that, even back then, Americans would’ve been especially concerned in protecting their investments.