“Operation Wetback” Begins: Latinos Deported
“Operation Wetback,”a federal immigration enforcement effort to deport Mexicans who had entered the U.S. illegally, began on this day.
The offensive name of the program was symptomatic of the cultural and political climate of the times. An estimated 107,000 people were arrested between May and July 1954, and eventually an estimated 1,078,168 people were seized. The program was marked by abuse: people seized had no opportunity to recover their personal property, and many were left stranded in Mexico without food.
Mass round-up and deportations of Mexican-Americans had also occurred in the 1930s. See February 2, 1931.
Memories of Operation Wetback were revived in 2015-2016 when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to keep out Mexican immigrants.
Read: Juan Ramon Garcia, Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954 (1980)
Watch a video about “Operation Wetback”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ3u2Cc6kyE
Learn more: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States (2014)
Hear Arlo Guthrie sing Woody Guthrie’s Deportee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2eO65BqxBE
Learn more about “Operation Wetback:” http://1950immigration.wordpress.com/operation-wetback/