How President Eisenhower's Racist Operation Wetback Still Inspires Today's Politicians

Presidential candidate and real estate mogul Donald Trump recently caused waves when he referenced a 1950s program that deported thousands upon thousands of illegal (and legal) Mexican immigrants from the United States. The operation which Mr. Trump so obliquely referenced was dubbed Operation Wetback. That was its official name.

A little background: after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the US entered World War II on the side of Allies. We all know this. Men are needed to fight wars and they volunteers (or were drafted) in droves. This left the agriculture sector of the American Southwest badly in need of workers to till the soil, pick the fruit, and plant the cotton. To that end, the United States, as part of our Good Neighbor Policy, initiated the Bracero Program. Mexican workers would be given work permits to work legally in the United States. This was all in fine and good while the boys were away…but then they came back. I should point out that many Mexican nationals did come here illegally to work. Many came by swimming across the Rio Grande, hence the derogatory name ‘wetback.’ American business owners were more than happy to hire them at low LOW wages.

Universal Newsreel “Wetback Roundup” via youtube.com

A report commissioned by President Truman, indicated that there was a massive illegal immigrant problem in the United States. The report stated,  “the magnitude … has reached entirely new levels in the past seven years. … In its newly achieved proportions, it is virtually an invasion.” Obviously something had to be done about these invaders (because we all know that in between picking strawberries they were planning the reconquista). When President Eisenhower lost patience with Congress’ inaction (see, it’s nothing new) he exercised his executive power and ordered Immigration and Naturalization to round up the illegals and kick them out. Dubbed Operation Wetback, the military-like operation deported people en masse using sting operations, home invasions, and daily roadblocks. Included among the deportees were actual American citizens.

Estimates vary but give or take about 1 million people were deported back to Mexico. They weren’t deported to the border towns. They were put on trains (mainly in Presidio and El Paso) destined for the interior of Mexico, lest they simply tried to cross again once they were unloaded at the border. The operation was a success: the public was happy and the government could say it actually did something.

If only it were a success…the problem then, as now, is that American businesses continued to need cheap labor. NBC News summed it up best, “The core demand of Mexican labor was never addressed. As a result, Operation Wetback was a setback in a larger migratory flow that essentially leads us to our current immigration context.”

Obama, Reagan, the Bible and Immigration

Obama, Reagan, the Bible and Immigration

The Gist

President Obama’s recent executive order (allowed under ArticleII, Section 1 of the Constitution, it does not require Congressional approval to take effect) shields about 4 million people from deportation. In the past, executive orders have been used to desegregate the armed forces, bar racial discrimination in federal housing and hiring, and President Reagan used one to prohibit  the use of federal funds for advocating abortion. This particular executive order DOES NOT give recipients a pathway to citizenship, health insurance under Obamacare, or guarantee they can stay here permanently. The order WILL allow parents of U.S. citizens (giving a little credence to the notion of the “anchor baby”), who have lived in the US for at least five years, a reprieve from deportation for at least three years and allow them to work. It DOES NOT, like many on both sides hoped, streamline the legal immigration process, provide tools for immigrants already here to become more assimilated, or resolve the issue of the other 6 million or so undocumented immigrants. Under President Bush, the Congressional Budget Office stated that, “...over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that…tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use.” The very right leaning CATO Institute, commenting on illegal immigration, noted that several studies have shown immigration has a “positive impact...on native-born wages.” One group whose wages are adversely affected by illegal immigration are American citizens without high school degrees (in 2013 the nationwide high school graduation rate was 75%). The last major immigration reform took place in 1986 when President Reagan signed a sweeping immigration bill, giving many amnesty (during his 1984 presidential campaign he stated, "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.”). Interestingly, and provocatively, the President quoted the Book of Exodus when speaking of the undocumented among us, “we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger.”…and now you know the gist.