Every place has organized crime. But the scale is not the same. You should research the italian mafia problem that existed in NYC. It was a completely different league than anything in Canada or Australia.

As to Ellis Island—I was using it as a label to refer to the pre-1920s wave of immigration generally. It was opened in the 1890s in response to waves of immigration that started in the 1830s. The film “Gangs of New York” is set from 1846-1863.