Operation Wetback
by Sarah H.
During the 1950s, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service underwent a project to remove illegal Mexican immigrants (“wetbacks”) from the Southwest and Southern California. As a result of Congress’ Public Law 78, many Mexican immigrants were cheaply paid, government contracted braceros. However, due to the ability to get higher wages and poor working conditions, many Mexican immigrants skipped-out on their contracts and continued working as wetbacks in the United States. Due to World War II and the post-war era, the demand for cheap agricultural laborers caused a mass migration of illegal Mexican immigrants to the Southwest (Handbook of Texas Online). According to Handbook of Texas Online, it is estimated that more than a million workers had crossed the Rio Grande illegally in 1954. Between 1944 and 1954, there was a 6,000 per cent increase of wetbacks in Texas (Handbook of Texas Online). The Immigration and Naturalization Service (hereinafter “INS”) began a quasi-military operation of search and seizure of all illegal immigrants (Handbook of Texas Online). According to The American G.I. Forum and the Texas State Federation of Labor, in their What Price Wetbacks?, “…illegal aliens in U.S. agriculture damaged the health of the American people , illegals displaced American workers, … and that the open-border policy of the American government posed a threat to the security of the United States” (Handbook of Texas Online). Competition for jobs and a greater intolerance for racial and ethnic minorities, especially those associated with political organizations of the Left, greatly affected the Mexican American community. Because of Operation Wetback and the McCarran Act, Mexican Americans were not only deported because of their non-citizen status, but also their dissident political views. The justification for Operation Wetback demonstrates our government’s political control of illegal entry into the United States. According to Juan Ramon García, the Justice Department released press releases that reminded the public that subversives hid themselves among the mass of Mexican immigrants; thus, continuing to fuel the anticommunist fears with Mexican immigration. Government officials also blamed wetbacks for the poor economic conditions in the Southwest at the time (Garcilazo). The politically, racially driven deportations of Mexican Americans during the 1950s reflects how the perceived threat to the United States’ security was eminent in the minds of Americans during the 1950s.
McCarthyism fueled the fear of anything “un-American”. Communism and the displacement of White American workers out of their jobs were a major concern for many Americans during the 1950s. Under federal law, the McCarran Act required the registration of members of Communist organizations with the U.S. Attorney General’s office and gave the Subversive Activities Control Board the right to investigate persons thought to be engaged in “un-American” activities. Furthermore, the McCarran Act allowed for the detention of persons were deemed danger, disloyal, or subversive in times of war or “internal security emergency.” Basically, any person who was considered dissident by the American government could be stripped of their civil liberties and deported. Unfortunately, many of the deported wetbacks were also their U.S. born.
Mexican Americans were especially vulnerable to deportation during the 1950s. Anti-communism and anti-Mexican hysteria permeated the everyday lives of Mexican Americans living in the Los Angeles and Southwest areas between 1950 and 1954. The occurrence of mass-raids on wetbacks during the McCarthy period reached its high point in 1954 with the largest INS assault on the Mexican American community in history (Garcilazo). Operation Wetback, as dubbed by the INS, entailed a promise of deporting 70,000 wetbacks, but rounded-up 36,124 (Garcilazo). However, the American Committee for Protection of the Foreign-Born reported that the INS expelled 1,101,228 Mexican-Americans (including undocumented workers and U.S. citizens) in 1954. Immigration authorities deported men, women, and children in trucks, as opposed to buses, to save on expenses (Garcilazo). According to The Handbook of Texas Online, deportation by sea began on the Emancipation, which transported wetbacks from Port Isabel, Texas, to Veracruz. (Note the striking similarity to how African slaves were transported to the U.S. from Africa) Ships were a preferred mode of transport because they displaced “illegal workers” farther away from the border (Handbook of Texas Online). Once Mexicans were rounded up by the INS, they were detained at detention centers such as Terminal Island and Elysian Park--reminiscent of the “concentration camps” from Nazi Germany and the Japanese American internment camps or our most recent detention center for dissidents, Guantánamo, Cuba.
Works Cited
Garcilazo. "MCCARTHYISM, MEXICAN AMERICANS, AND THE LOS ANGELES COMMITTEE FOR PROTECTION OF THE FOREIGN-BORN, 1950-1954." The Western historical quarterly 32.3 (2001):273-295.
Handbook of Texas Online: Operation Wetback
During the 1950s, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service underwent a project to remove illegal Mexican immigrants (“wetbacks”) from the Southwest and Southern California. As a result of Congress’ Public Law 78, many Mexican immigrants were cheaply paid, government contracted braceros. However, due to the ability to get higher wages and poor working conditions, many Mexican immigrants skipped-out on their contracts and continued working as wetbacks in the United States. Due to World War II and the post-war era, the demand for cheap agricultural laborers caused a mass migration of illegal Mexican immigrants to the Southwest (Handbook of Texas Online). According to Handbook of Texas Online, it is estimated that more than a million workers had crossed the Rio Grande illegally in 1954. Between 1944 and 1954, there was a 6,000 per cent increase of wetbacks in Texas (Handbook of Texas Online). The Immigration and Naturalization Service (hereinafter “INS”) began a quasi-military operation of search and seizure of all illegal immigrants (Handbook of Texas Online). According to The American G.I. Forum and the Texas State Federation of Labor, in their What Price Wetbacks?, “…illegal aliens in U.S. agriculture damaged the health of the American people , illegals displaced American workers, … and that the open-border policy of the American government posed a threat to the security of the United States” (Handbook of Texas Online). Competition for jobs and a greater intolerance for racial and ethnic minorities, especially those associated with political organizations of the Left, greatly affected the Mexican American community. Because of Operation Wetback and the McCarran Act, Mexican Americans were not only deported because of their non-citizen status, but also their dissident political views. The justification for Operation Wetback demonstrates our government’s political control of illegal entry into the United States. According to Juan Ramon García, the Justice Department released press releases that reminded the public that subversives hid themselves among the mass of Mexican immigrants; thus, continuing to fuel the anticommunist fears with Mexican immigration. Government officials also blamed wetbacks for the poor economic conditions in the Southwest at the time (Garcilazo). The politically, racially driven deportations of Mexican Americans during the 1950s reflects how the perceived threat to the United States’ security was eminent in the minds of Americans during the 1950s.
McCarthyism fueled the fear of anything “un-American”. Communism and the displacement of White American workers out of their jobs were a major concern for many Americans during the 1950s. Under federal law, the McCarran Act required the registration of members of Communist organizations with the U.S. Attorney General’s office and gave the Subversive Activities Control Board the right to investigate persons thought to be engaged in “un-American” activities. Furthermore, the McCarran Act allowed for the detention of persons were deemed danger, disloyal, or subversive in times of war or “internal security emergency.” Basically, any person who was considered dissident by the American government could be stripped of their civil liberties and deported. Unfortunately, many of the deported wetbacks were also their U.S. born.
Mexican Americans were especially vulnerable to deportation during the 1950s. Anti-communism and anti-Mexican hysteria permeated the everyday lives of Mexican Americans living in the Los Angeles and Southwest areas between 1950 and 1954. The occurrence of mass-raids on wetbacks during the McCarthy period reached its high point in 1954 with the largest INS assault on the Mexican American community in history (Garcilazo). Operation Wetback, as dubbed by the INS, entailed a promise of deporting 70,000 wetbacks, but rounded-up 36,124 (Garcilazo). However, the American Committee for Protection of the Foreign-Born reported that the INS expelled 1,101,228 Mexican-Americans (including undocumented workers and U.S. citizens) in 1954. Immigration authorities deported men, women, and children in trucks, as opposed to buses, to save on expenses (Garcilazo). According to The Handbook of Texas Online, deportation by sea began on the Emancipation, which transported wetbacks from Port Isabel, Texas, to Veracruz. (Note the striking similarity to how African slaves were transported to the U.S. from Africa) Ships were a preferred mode of transport because they displaced “illegal workers” farther away from the border (Handbook of Texas Online). Once Mexicans were rounded up by the INS, they were detained at detention centers such as Terminal Island and Elysian Park--reminiscent of the “concentration camps” from Nazi Germany and the Japanese American internment camps or our most recent detention center for dissidents, Guantánamo, Cuba.
Works Cited
Garcilazo. "MCCARTHYISM, MEXICAN AMERICANS, AND THE LOS ANGELES COMMITTEE FOR PROTECTION OF THE FOREIGN-BORN, 1950-1954." The Western historical quarterly 32.3 (2001):273-295.
Handbook of Texas Online: Operation Wetback
posted by Leslie Madsen-Brooks at 12/05/2006 08:56:00 PM
4 Comments:
Obviously America was not successful in ridding the US of Mexicans so does their failure of operation wetback keep any hostility in todays population shift to a majority of the populaiton being from south of the US boder? Especially as Americans are still fighting to punish illegal immigrants for being in america.
Ben Reynolds
I agree with Ben. The United States is still debating the best way to go about handling illegal immigrants-with the new immigration reform of 2006 being highly debated. It is hard to say what is the best way to go about it. These immigrants provide services that many legal citizens are unwilling to do, but at the same time do they still deserve to be here?
Michelle J.
Trying to eliminate illegal immigration is like trying to stop water from following the path of least resistance. People will do what ever they have to do to create a better life for themselves as well as their families. Unless we locked up the border completely and created more repressive sanctions to punish offenders I highly doubt that there will be a change in the flux of illegal immigration. What would happen if we actually were able to eliminate illegal immigrants from crossing the border.
Matt B.
Pro-illegal alien apologists lamented:
"By displacing over 1 million American-born Mexican Americans, I'm curious as to how Mexico reacted to their population increase!"
I don't care where they were born, they are just as illegal as their parents! Who cares how Mexico "reacted to their population increase"? The only thing I care about is the negative impact these illegal alien interlopers are having on MY country! Btw, how many Mexicans live on your street, block, city or town and cause endless noise and disruption? Hmmm?
"returning people back to where they came from and even building walls to keep them there does not fix the problem at large."
Typical libtard. That's like saying having laws that punish people for committing murder "does not fix the problem at large"...after all, people will still continue to kill people. The bottom line is this: MEXICANS BELONG IN MEXICO. Americans did not vote for nor do they want their country flooded with masses of unassimilable people who, outside the most basic human needs, have little or nothing in common with them, a people who are in the process of turning America into an extension of Mexico!
"Trying to eliminate illegal immigration is like trying to stop water from following the path of least resistance. People will do what ever they have to do to create a better life for themselves as well as their families."
Again, I ask: How many Mexicans live on your street, block, city or town and cause endless noise and disruption? Hmmm? They want a better life? Then let them organize and do something about making life and conditions better in their country and not ruin the quality of life for me and other Americans in MY country!
I live in a city here in central New Jersey (New Brunswick) which no longer resembles the one I grew up in. My street and surrounding streets throughout many parts of this city are packed with Hispanics of every stripe, mostly Mexicans, who are, needless to say, not here legally. Taking a walk after hours, even during daytime hours in many areas is not an activity I would recommended for those of a Caucasian background. Ah yes, the 'benefits' and cultural 'enrichment' of "diversity. And on top of that, I have to pay increased property taxes for social services (read: welfare benefit$) and to educate the spawn of those (who would do harm to me) as if they were here legally in addition the increase in size of the police force to keep these turd world bastards in line.
Noisy kids, kids, and more kids running around everywhere. Then there are those kids waiting to make noise incubating in the wombs of very fecund senoritas.
Houses are packed with more occupants than legally allowed along with the corresponding increase of automobile traffic and cars that are now parked in driveways and on the streets. Ah, shades of Tijuana.
Then there is the very obnoxious, irritating Mexican and other Hispanic music blasting from open windows, driveways, backyards and car stereos, especially during the warmer months of the year with weekend parties the norm late into the night along with the usual disturbance of the peace (do I have to name them?) and public urination. Then there's the increase of litter and trash on the sidewalks and streets.
"Diversity" sure is "our greatest strength". Yeah, sure it is...if you're trying to wreck a country!
What is needed more so than in the 1950s is for Operation Wetback II. If this doesn't happen for sure America WILL break up.
Bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and let the operation begin!
Tom
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