And once more: I've now read the song past the first verse. In general, it's a catalog of events, it's overly sentimental, and it's wrong.

When they closed down Ellis Island in 1943
Seventeen million people had come there for sanctuary
And in springtime when I came here
And stepped on to it's piers
I thought of how it must have been
When you're only 15 years

They closed Ellis Island in 1954. Period. Quota laws restricted immigration in 1921 and even moreso in 1924. But the island operated with several agenices using space until November 1954 and in those last few years any immigrants who were detained out there were sent there from somewhere else. They weren't arriving by ship in New YOrk harbor in the fashion they did in the early years.

The numbers who were processed there are estimated between 12 and 16 million, and I think the park service is happiest with the 12 million number. When the first building burned the records were destroyed so they're not sure (and names would have been lost). This song to me sounds like something generated at the time the Ellis Island Foundation was doing it's big thing. They seemed to feel the need to overly sentimentalize and sensationalize the immigration process to raise money to restore the island. They are also the only ones who produced that 17 million number. Annie is about the only thing that is correct. But just to be on the safe side, check BOTH grand openings--the one in 1892 and the one in 1900 when the new brick buildings were opened (after the wooden building burned in 1897).

SRS