Posted on 07/06/2006 11:08:29 PM PDT by vikingd00d
WASHINGTON - George W. Bush isn't the first Republican president to face a full-blown immigration crisis on the US-Mexican border.
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.
Although there is little to no record of this operation in Ike's official papers, one piece of historic evidence indicates how he felt. In 1951, Ike wrote a letter to Sen. William Fulbright (D) of Arkansas. The senator had just proposed that a special commission be created by Congress to examine unethical conduct by government officials who accepted gifts and favors in exchange for special treatment of private individuals.
General Eisenhower, who was gearing up for his run for the presidency, said "Amen" to Senator Fulbright's proposal. He then quoted a report in The New York Times, highlighting one paragraph that said: "The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican 'wetbacks' 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."
Years later, the late Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower's first attorney general, said in an interview with this writer that the president had a sense of urgency about illegal immigration when he took office.
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."
Bill Chambers, who worked for a combined 33 years for the Border Patrol and the then-called US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), says politically powerful people are still fueling the flow of illegals.
During the 1950s, however, this "Good Old Boy" system changed under Eisenhower – if only for about 10 years.
In 1954, Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph "Jumpin' Joe" Swing, a former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the new INS commissioner.
Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General Swing's close connections to the president shielded him – and the Border Patrol – from meddling by powerful political and corporate interests.
One of Swing's first decisive acts was to transfer certain entrenched immigration officials out of the border area to other regions of the country where their political connections with people such as Senator Johnson would have no effect.
Then on June 17, 1954, what was called "Operation Wetback" began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.
By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, and eastward to Texas.
By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily.
Unlike today, Mexicans caught in the roundup were not simply released at the border, where they could easily reenter the US. To discourage their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens deep within Mexico before being set free.
Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south.
The sea voyage was "a rough trip, and they did not like it," says Don Coppock, who worked his way up from Border Patrolman in 1941 to eventually head the Border Patrol from 1960 to 1973.
Mr. Coppock says he "cannot understand why [President] Bush let [today's] problem get away from him as it has. I guess it was his compassionate conservatism, and trying to please [Mexican President] Vincente Fox."
There are now said to be 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the US. Of the Mexicans who live here, an estimated 85 percent are here illegally.
Patrol vets offer tips on curbing illegal immigration One day in 1954, Border Patrol agent Walt Edwards picked up a newspaper in Big Spring, Texas, and saw some startling news. The government was launching an all-out drive to oust illegal aliens from the United States.
The orders came straight from the top, where the new president, Dwight Eisenhower, had put a former West Point classmate, Gen. Joseph Swing, in charge of immigration enforcement.
General Swing's fast-moving campaign soon secured America's borders – an accomplishment no other president has since equaled. Illegal migration had dropped 95 percent by the late 1950s.
Several retired Border Patrol agents who took part in the 1950s effort, including Mr. Edwards, say much of what Swing did could be repeated today.
"Some say we cannot send 12 million illegals now in the United States back where they came from. Of course we can!" Edwards says.
Donald Coppock, who headed the Patrol from 1960 to 1973, says that if Swing and Ike were still running immigration enforcement, "they'd be on top of this in a minute."
William Chambers, another '50s veteran, agrees. "They could do a pretty good job" sealing the border.
Edwards says: "When we start enforcing the law, these various businesses are, on their own, going to replace their [illegal] workforce with a legal workforce."
While Congress debates building a fence on the border, these veterans say other actions should have higher priority.
1. End the current practice of taking captured Mexican aliens to the border and releasing them. Instead, deport them deep into Mexico, where return to the US would be more costly.
2. Crack down hard on employers who hire illegals. Without jobs, the aliens won't come.
3. End "catch and release" for non-Mexican aliens. It is common for illegal migrants not from Mexico to be set free after their arrest if they promise to appear later before a judge. Few show up.
The Patrol veterans say enforcement could also be aided by a legalized guest- worker program that permits Mexicans to register in their country for temporary jobs in the US. Eisenhower's team ran such a program. It permitted up to 400,000 Mexicans a year to enter the US for various agriculture jobs that lasted for 12 to 52 weeks.
Pinging Tancredo!!!!!
Holy cats! Yahoo News? Someone asleep at the switch!
I like Ike.
Last night on Larry King President Bush said he'd rather be right than popular but he seems to have missed a chance to do what is not only right but the law. Protecting our borders from illegal border crossings. He also stated previously we can't make illegal aliens who live here, work hard and raise a family go back to their country of origin. He didn't give any reasons why we can't deport them but we just ... can't. Bullhockey!!
Stop business from hiring illegal aliens by any means, they too are breaking the law.
Send as many as you can back and I love the idea of taking them deeper into Mexico so it's harder than just turning around and walking back in. If they want to immigrate let them do it the right way, thousands all over the would are waiting to do it right.
Contrast Ike's way of rounding 'em up to the newest proposal of adding 6,000 more B.P. agents who will be putzin' around playing "catch the alien on-the-computer screen monitor"!
It's not that we can't, it's that he won't.
Someone please ask our President WHY Ike could.
It becomes a "broken window" issue. The illegals are not stupid and they know how to work the system. THEY know they won't be deported.
Ah for some of those boat trips to the south of Mexico again. Might need the Queen Mary this time.
'OPERATION WETBACK" ping
Imagine if we rejuvenated this? The PC crowd would go into meltdown just from the operation's title!
Bingo!
Does anyone with a brain think that American border patrol could go into Mexico and hold Mexican citizens hostage against their will until the border patrol decided to let them off the bus or train? There is zero way the Federales would allow the US to violate their national sovereignty. It is also likely that Mexico would have refused to allow a US ship to put Mexicans off in a city 500 miles from the US border. They very likely would have refused to allow such a US ship to dock.
I know for a fact that during the Eisenhower administration that farmers in north western Ohio were importing Mexicans by the ton to pick tomatoes and other vegetable crops for Campbell's Soup and Heinz Ketchup. During tomato harvest there were Mexicans every where one looked.
The 12 to 52 week guest worker program was so poorly monitored,at least in Ohio, that many of the Mexicans stayed and got regular full time jobs. The FCC under Ike ordered local radio stations to carry Mexican programming in order to get our radio station license renewed. They had to know and condone Mexicans staying and working year round in Ohio. We were running 10 percent of our stations programming in Spanish. I had two Mexican guest workers (tomato pickers) hired as Mexican DJs. They worked for me for over 10 years... 9 years times 52 weeks is how many weeks of being illegal?
The next year the farmers would bring in a whole new bunch of guest worker immigrants and a even bigger bunch would stay on after the crops were harvested.
During this period Caesar Chavez started to try to organize the Mexican farm workers in California into a union to get better pay. Ten years later he was trying to organize the farm workers in northern Ohio.
The author of this story is quick to point out there is no record of what Ike actually did.
I also know that during the Eisenhower administration two Texans, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson, owned the House and the Senate. That is not an exaggeration. They owned both bodies. Ike could not do crap with out their approval.
I spent a couple of years covering national news in the 50s. We used to joke that Ike spent half his time kissing Johnson's butt and the other half kissing Rayburn's. If Johnson and Rayburn wanted the Mexican border open... there is no way Ike would do anything to close it.
I watched Johnson and Rayburn work.. they had a hammer lock on the house and senate. In fact Johnson had such control of the Senate that after Johnson became president the senators changed the senate rules before selecting his successor so no majority leader could ever have that much power again.
Johnson and Rayburn would have cut appropriations for Mexican Border Guards to zero and every thing Ike wanted to do would have been Dead on Arrival. That did not happen. Ike got most of what he wanted from Johnson and Rayburn and Johnson and Rayburn got whatever they wanted from Ike. There is zero way Ike opposed those two Texans.
I don't believe this story.
after Johnson became president = after Johnson became vic president
Operation Wetback is historical fact and millions of Mexicans were sent packing. Illegals were rooted out and a lot of legal immigrants also went south
inspiring ping for later
The only thing Ike overlooked was the "Slumlord Effect". Slumlords delight in finding tenants that can be OVERcharged & UNDERserved.
In Ike's days "wetbacks" funded Slumlords. Slumlords under-reported their "rental income". Honest & caring Landlords had NO WAY to check the Status & Honesty of their tenants.
This hasn't Changed.
742 folks share the SSN of ONE Utah Youth.
Forget "ID Cards"; build a Federal database. Open it to Employers & Landlords.
Don't let the Utah SSN have multiple Landlords, or work in multiple States.
already posted
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1661011/posts
How is this a full-blown crisis under Bush and not The Human Stain? Is it because Bush might do something about it?
Reminds me of when Bush took office; suddenly there were lots more homeless people than before.
And don't give me that "it's because of 9/11" baloney; I hardly think that there are Islamic terrorists pouring over our southern border. Much easier to fly in directly, or drive across the Canadian border (what is it? 85% of Canada's population lives within 45 minutes of the border?)
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