Operation Wetback- Effective Immigration Policy or Xenophobic Immigration Policy

Many people have voiced their opinion that the illegal immigration issue has gotten out of hand and is urging Congress to take care of the situation. In the 1950's President Eisenhower faced a similar situation and approved an immigration policy called Operation Wetback.

Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.

President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents--less than one-tenth of today's force. The operation is still highly praised among veterans of the Border Patrol.

www.borderfirereport.net...

The INS claimed it to be a sucess.

The INS claimed as many as 1,300,000, though the number officially apprehended did not come anywhere near this total. The INS estimate rested on the claim that most aliens, fearing apprehension by the government, had voluntarily repatriated themselves before and during the operation.

www.tshaonline.org...

However, many critics viewed the operation as racial profiling and a xenophobic act.

Some Mexicans, fearful of the potential violence of this militarization, fled back south across the border. In 1954, the agents discovered over 1 million illegal immigrants.

In some cases, illegal immigrants were deported along with their American-born children, who were by law U.S. citizens. The agents used a wide brush in their criteria for interrogating potential aliens. They adopted the practice of stopping "Mexican-looking" citizens on the street and asking for identification. This practice incited and angered many U.S. citizens who were of Mexican American descent. Opponents in both the United States and Mexico complained of "police-state" methods, and Operation Wetback was abandoned.

www.pbs.org...

Critics of Operation Wetback considered it xenophobic and heartless.

www.tshaonline.org...

Do you view Operation Wetback as a successful policy that should be reimplemented to take care of our current immigration problem or do you see it as an insensitive, Xenophobic, racial profiling policy?

Do you think the name of the operation was inappropirate?

Certainly the name should be changed and the quality put in, like "The Alien equal rights and Humanification Act", which will require aliens to have a college education and $15000 dollars in assets before entering the U.S., that isn't to descriminatory? Not like "gang member" which most assimilate into or "terrorist" which is the correct term for foreign spy. No I'm afraid the "wretched, poor and tired yearning to be free" need to be educated first and supported. This is welcomed visitor.

Good thread Jam, S+F.

Like it or not America was born on the basis of Immigration. Limiting immigration is the only option. The current administrations failure of border security is outstanding. Instead of letting hard working legal immigrants through you have rapists, pedophiles and murderers that cross the border. Yet when the border police try to stop them they are sent to jail. It's up to Obama now to implement a new immigration reform. Instead of focusing on the poor travelers that come to America seeking a better future the reform should be pitted against the drug dealing degenerates that cross our borders and deface our society.

-Ign0RanT

reply to post by jam321


Why our greedy corporations bring foreigners in 4 cheap labor & when something goes wrong they look 4 somebody to blame.
Once I met a fifth generation Mexican man who knows nothing about Mexico & told me a story that was told to him by his father ,that America used to bring these people from Mexico to work when everything is fine but when the condition changed the police round them up like animals and send them back to Mexico where a lot of children were born in this country and they don't even speak the language and citizenship doesn't mean anything or human rights.

my fellow Americans;Let me tell something , if these people are deported,
Our country will stop completely from functioning PERIOD !

Originally posted by rightwingnut
Certainly the name should be changed and the quality put in, like "The Alien equal rights and Humanification Act", which will require aliens to have a college education and $15000 dollars in assets before entering the U.S., that isn't to descriminatory? Not like "gang member" which most assimilate into or "terrorist" which is the correct term for foreign spy. No I'm afraid the "wretched, poor and tired yearning to be free" need to be educated first and supported. This is welcomed visitor.

Considering our country is on the verge of failing financially are you personally going to support these people? In times such as what we are in today you must have guidelines for who you let become a part of our society.

This requirement of immigrants having a college education and money in their pockets is FANTASTIC and would show that the potential is there that they will become an asset to our country and make it stronger. We already support too many worthless (lifelong welfare recipients) americans we can't afford to add to them. Please I understand that many Americans that are supported under federal and state programs are not worthless; but everyone has seen or knows someone who has made it a life goal to enter the rolls.

It may seem cruel, unfair, biased or you name it but the days of endless support for people who couldn't possibly navigate our society or even speak it's language need to be over!

The USA was indeed built on immigrants comming here and welcomed anyone into the country and allowed easy access. There is a reason for that.

It is because the country was young, and needed a population in order to grow..and so it did.

Today, we dont need an inrush of "easy access" anymore, simply becasue the nation is well populated and is already established. We certianly can take in more immigrants, providing they do their part to become legal citizens and contribute to the whole, not just come here and park their butts grouped up in safe houses and not go through the legalization process and not contribute to the system they are taking advantage of, which if you get right down to it, affects all of the citizens and those who do go through the legal process to become citizens.

Thats why its called "ILLEGAL" immigration, its illegal, plain and simple. And unless we are going to consider every illegal activity as "bendable" to the established law, then laws wouldnt mean a hill of beans at that point.

It needs to be addressed and rectified now.



Cheers!!!!

Congress has considered some reforms that aren't quite so xenophobic.
They didn't get to the White House.

Here's a proposal based on some of the reform package that almost got sent up:
www.abovetopsecret.com...'

This program can ensure emigrants who are able to function, assimilate even, with Mexico and Canada bearing some of the burden themselves.
(Since we're all going to be one North American trading bloc anyway)

Those who think we need this illegal immigration should spend some of their time on the local papers websites and see the crime committed by a large porportion of these border crossers. You might change your tune a bit. Hospitals are going bankrupt becasue by law they must provide care no matter where these folks come from. They are draging shooting cases over the border and showing up at emergency rooms expecting care when they've been shot be other gang members in there drug wars. People living within 5 miles of the border can't leave their properties with out security becasue if they go to the store or leave for any reason, the chancesare when they come back they will not have anything left in their homes, including their damned underware. I'm not kidding folks. The MSM is ignoring the real monetary problems these illegals are causeing. You and i as tax payers are paying for it. We cannot afford this any longer with our own economy in the state its in. Wake up folks. We're in for a long hard fight here!!
Zindo

The government loves the status quo.Illegal aliens earn money and pay in payroll taxes on false Social Security numbers.They never file income tax returns.All that tax money stays in the system.That's a lot of money even if you figure 4 million at mimum wage jobs paying $40 a week in taxes.Thats around 160 million a week.
I don't look for illegal immigration reform any time soon.

daddyroo45, you need a lesson in reality.
Many, many of these illegals get paid cash "under the table.'

Not this has nothing to do with the race of the individuals. To say that they are Mexicans just happens to be a description of them. So get over the "xenophobic" label. I am totally sick of hearing this every time something negative is said about a non white person or group.
Yes, it is a sorry thing that long time citizens of Mexican descent are sometimes stopped and questioned, and they are due respectfull apologies.

Do not be decieved by thinking that they are allowed to come in because corporations want cheap labor. Some corporations mahy welcome this, however TPTB allow it because it is divisive.

The people of the US were once a solid block of proud patriots.
We now have almost half of the population that has loyalties to other nations and to other ethnicities.

Divide and conquer.
Dilute and destroy.

[edit on 1-1-2009 by OhZone]

reply to post by jam321


Jam,

I was just reading about Operation Wetback and I did a search to see if there were any ATS threads about the subject. I will revive this one.

I think they went to extreme measures back then but its up to debate if it was the right decision. It certainly would not fly in this day and age.

"The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexicans to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government." - Dwight D. Eisenhower 1951

I think reading about how illegal immigration was viewed back in the 1950s really sheds light on how we got where we are today. I find it interesting that you won't read about this in any text book at school.

How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico

Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.

President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents – less than one-tenth of today's force.

Sound like this next part could have been written today.

America "was faced with a breakdown in law enforcement on a very large scale," Mr. Brownell said. "When I say large scale, I mean hundreds of thousands were coming in from Mexico [every year] without restraint."

Although an on-and-off guest-worker program for Mexicans was operating at the time, farmers and ranchers in the Southwest had become dependent on an additional low-cost, docile, illegal labor force of up to 3 million, mostly Mexican, laborers.

According to the Handbook of Texas Online, published by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association, this illegal workforce had a severe impact on the wages of ordinary working Americans. The Handbook Online reports that a study by the President's Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas in 1950 found that cotton growers in the Rio Grande Valley, where most illegal aliens in Texas worked, paid wages that were "approximately half" the farm wages paid elsewhere in the state.

Profits from illegal labor led to the kind of corruption that apparently worried Eisenhower. Joseph White, a retired 21-year veteran of the Border Patrol, says that in the early 1950s, some senior US officials overseeing immigration enforcement "had friends among the ranchers," and agents "did not dare" arrest their illegal workers.

Walt Edwards, who joined the Border Patrol in 1951, tells a similar story. He says: "When we caught illegal aliens on farms and ranches, the farmer or rancher would often call and complain [to officials in El Paso]. And depending on how politically connected they were, there would be political intervention. That is how we got into this mess we are in now."

www.csmonitor.com...

Originally posted by Ign0rant
Instead of focusing on the poor travelers that come to America seeking a better future the reform should be pitted against the drug dealing degenerates that cross our borders and deface our society.

I agree the criminals should be dealt with, but as to the "poor travelers" -- some people here on ATS noted that the working class in the US shed blood and sweat to win the condition it was in, until recently. Now you have an influx of labor that costs pennies and therefore undermines the labor market. That's called stealing, in reasonable people's book.

Of course, many have become soft bellied and soft-brained to the point that they no longer care about the invasion. Duh.

reply to post by buddhasystem

Now you have an influx of labor that costs pennies and therefore undermines the labor market. That's called stealing, in reasonable people's book)

But why do people focus on one side stealing(illegals) while ignoring the ones who are stealing more (corporations, businesses, government.

When are people going to see that illegals didn't write their own ticket? They don't pass laws so they can benefit from them and they don't hire themselves.

Originally posted by jam321
But why do people focus on one side stealing(illegals) while ignoring the ones who are stealing more (corporations, businesses, government).

Who said people ignore all that, huh? You are on ATS for gossake, just have a read... People are pretty p!ssed by these other perps you mentioned.

When are people going to see that illegals didn't write their own ticket?

Oh puh-leeeze... Illegals write their tickets all the time by virtue of the fact that they knowingly break the law of our country, by their own volition.

reply to post by buddhasystem

Who said people ignore all that, huh? You are on ATS for gossake, just have a read... People are pretty p!ssed by these other perps you mentioned.

a read... Is reading going to slve the problems? Is posting going to solve the problems?

I ask you...

Has the deficit been fixed? Social Security? Medicare? Medicaid? Job Loss? Economy? Housing Market? War on drugs? War in Iraq and fghanistan? War on terrorism? Border security? Visas? Spending? Tariffs? Wall Street? ETC...

Please tell me what has been fixed if people are so pissed. Do you really think immigration is the bigest problem we face? Ever since this immigration issue heated up, Congress has been on vacation because people are too busy screaming about illegals instead of pressuring Congress to do something about the PROBLEMS this country is facing.

The issue isn't merely immigration. It is a whole load of problems and none of them are being fully addressed.

Oh puh-leeeze... Illegals write their tickets all the time by virtue of the fact that they knowingly break the law of our country, by their own volition.

And just like Americans who knowingly break the law as well. Please don't tell me you never speed or break laws. Of course the laws you and I break are classified as misdemeanors.

Oh but wait, entering the country illegally is also a misdeameanor. On top of that most illegals are never charged.

The arrogant bigoted official US military name says it all;

and figures Trump has simply added a 'WALL' to itinerary while relaunching the Op: