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The Largest Mass Deportation in American History As many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower-era campaign.
HISTORY.COM ^ | UPDATED: JUNE 18, 2019 | ERIN BLAKEMORE

Posted on 05/08/2023 8:04:09 AM PDT by bitt

July is scorching in Mexicali. The Mexican city just across the border from Calexico, California, averages 108 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, but temperatures often swell into the 120s.

In 1955, thousands of disoriented people roamed the city’s streets as the sun bore down on them. They had just been dumped there by American immigration officials—snatched from their lives and jobs in the United States and thrown into a city where they didn’t know anyone.

These Mexican immigrants had been caught in the snare of Operation Wetback, the biggest mass deportation of undocumented workers in United States history. As many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower-era campaign with a racist name, which was designed to root out undocumented Mexicans from American society.

The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century, Operation Wetback was designed to send them back to Mexico.

With the help of the Mexican government, which sought the return of Mexican nationals to alleviate a labor shortage, Border Patrol agents and local officials used military techniques and engaged in a coordinated, tactical operation to remove the immigrants. Along the way, they used widespread racial stereotypes to justify their sometimes brutal treatment of immigrants. Inside the United States, anti-Mexican sentiment was pervasive, and harsh portrayals of Mexican immigrants as dirty, disease-bearing and irresponsible were the norm.

(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...


TOPICS: Education; History; Society
KEYWORDS: eisenhower; illegalaliens

1 posted on 05/08/2023 8:04:09 AM PDT by bitt
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To: bitt

>> With the help of the Mexican government, which sought the return of Mexican nationals to alleviate a labor shortage, Border Patrol agents and local officials used military techniques and engaged in a coordinated, tactical operation to remove the immigrants.

Perfect. Let’s do it again, only bigger.


2 posted on 05/08/2023 8:08:03 AM PDT by Nervous Tick (Truth is not hate speech.)
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To: bitt

aiming for 10 million at the minimum next time.


3 posted on 05/08/2023 8:08:58 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: bitt

The largest mass deportation in our history under the Eisenhower/Nixon administration.

Five years later the Catholic author of “A Nation of Immigrants” runs on a platform of chain migration, defeats Nixon, and then starts implementing his replacement immigration goals which included bringing in Chinese specifically, and then in 1965 his dream of the 1965 Immigration Act becomes reality creating a bilingual, Latin United States.


4 posted on 05/08/2023 8:16:02 AM PDT by ansel12 (NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.)
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To: bitt

If DeSantis wants to bolt to the top of the field, all he has to do is (credibly) vow to DEPORT every immigrant who did not go through our formal immigration process - pretty meaning that they came across the Southern Border, whether checking-in at a port-of-entry or not.

So far, neither Trump nor DeSantis has made any clear statement in this regard, as far as I can tell.


5 posted on 05/08/2023 8:18:50 AM PDT by BobL
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To: PIF

We have gotten to the point where there are many more whom should be rounded up then we can find the resources to do it. Sad.


6 posted on 05/08/2023 8:19:10 AM PDT by Mouton (The enemy of the people is the media )
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To: bitt

When our nation state wasn’t overtake by genetic mid-wits, and indoctrinated by leftist quasi-Marxist principles.

When we still had the natural and healthy urge of self preservation.


7 posted on 05/08/2023 8:21:24 AM PDT by Phoenix8 (8th century.)
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To: bitt
As many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower-era campaign


8 posted on 05/08/2023 8:23:50 AM PDT by Jim Noble (It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government)
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To: bitt

Says it like it was a BAD thing. Pathetic.


9 posted on 05/08/2023 8:24:06 AM PDT by Chad C. Mulligan
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To: bitt

Let’s to it again. It’ll be easier this time. There is more of them.


10 posted on 05/08/2023 8:33:11 AM PDT by cableguymn
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To: Mouton

Busses, trains planes dedicated to do the job - If we can fund the Green New Deal, we certainly can fund the removal of masses of illegals.


11 posted on 05/08/2023 8:38:58 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: ansel12

“Five years later the Catholic author of “A Nation of Immigrants”

Hoo Boy Izz Yew in trubble now on this forum

Not supposed to say the Troof out loud

Certainly not about St. John of Limerick, er, Bah-stahn, er, Mah-tha’s Vineyard.


12 posted on 05/08/2023 8:40:32 AM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: Mouton

If it was done properly with the right resources, buses, plenty of agents, aviation to fly them back to their home country many of them would leave on their own just as during the Eisenhower administration. Suspend their rights to a hearing before an Immigration Judge, no appeals, no asylum, if they’re unlawfully present they’re subject to immediate removal. Advertise heavily on tv, radio, social media. Let them know that immigration agents are coming after them and a lot of them would pack up and leave.


13 posted on 05/08/2023 9:03:41 AM PDT by ssapro (SSAPRO/ EXBP)
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To: ssapro

Make the corrupt employers who have been hiring them pay to send them back.


14 posted on 05/08/2023 9:21:20 AM PDT by mumblypeg ("Give me Stalin or St. Paul. I've seen the Future, brother; it is murder."--Leonard Cohen)
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To: bitt

I wish we had a president with balls today to do the same with the 60,000,000+ illegals currently in the United States


15 posted on 05/08/2023 10:43:00 AM PDT by Reno89519 (Go Woke, Go Broke. Every Time Trump Says Something, I'm Closer to Anyone But Trump.)
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To: ssapro

I used to enjoy seeing the requirement for all aliens to register every January as to where they were located.


16 posted on 05/08/2023 10:46:53 AM PDT by Mouton (The enemy of the people is the media )
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To: bitt
I was eight then, but remember it well. Operation Wetback hit the west Texas ranching business about as hard as the 50s drought!

Things are different now. The illegals are different now. Ship them back!

17 posted on 05/08/2023 4:02:15 PM PDT by umbagi (Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it. [Twain])
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