Operation Wetback - We did it Before, We can do it Again!

One of my main frustrations and disappointments with President Bush and several other Republican leaders has been his failure to secure our borders and his opening arms/amnesty attitude toward the growing number of illegal aliens present in the United States. Not only do I feel it poses a security risk to the country, but it also burdening us at a time when jobs are in short supply. And let's not even go into the burden it has placed on the healthcare system, especially in states like California. I didn't know the following until I got an e-mail today. Evidently, this is not a new problem and one which has been solved before. Oh, how I long for the old days.

Burgeoning numbers of illegal aliens prompted President Dwight D. Eisenhower to appoint his longtime friend, General Joseph Swing, as INS Commissioner. According to Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower had a sense of urgency about illegal immigration upon taking office. In a letter to Sen. William Fulbright, Eisenhower quoted a report in The New York Times that said: "The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican 'wetbacks' (rooted from the watery route taken by the Mexican immigrants across the Rio Grande) 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."

The operation was modeled after a program that encouraged American citizens of Mexican ancestry to move to Mexico during the Great Depression because of the bad economic situation in the United States. (Note, this is something which is happening now, as Mexicans are leaving the U.S. before our economy has gone south. Talk about biting the hand that fed you, but no matter, good riddance. Now let's build that wall!!!!)

The effort began in California and Arizona, and coordinated 1,075 Border Patrol agents along with state and local police agencies to mount an aggressive crackdown, going as far as police sweeps of Mexican-American neighborhoods and random stops and ID checks of "Mexican-looking" people in a region with many Native Americans and native Hispanics. 750 agents targeted agricultural areas with a goal of 1000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 immigrants were caught in the two states. Around 488,000 illegal immigrants are claimed to have left voluntarily for fear of being apprehended. By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and the INS estimates that 500,000 to 700,000 had left Texas on their own. To discourage re-entry, buses and trains took many deportees deep within Mexico before releasing them. Tens of thousands more were deported by two chartered ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried them from Port Isabel, Texas, to Veracruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) to the south. Some were taken as far as 1,000 miles. Deportation by sea was ended after seven deportees jumped overboard from the Mercurio and drowned, provoked a mutiny and leading to a public outcry in Mexico.

Personally, I have seen the devastation first hand when I lived in Sedalia, Missouri. When Tyson built one of their chicken plants there, they brought in illegals to work. Crime went up in the little sleepy hollow of Sedalia to the tune of 300%. Crimes included theft, drunk driving, driving without insurance, etc. You see, you can take them out of their country, but you can't change the behavior by trying to impose our laws on them. I am well aware that talk such as this can be seen as racist but frankly, I think we should put country first.

Many cities, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Jersey City, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Aurora, Colorado, Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, Portland, Maine, and Senath, Missouri, have become "sanctuary cities", having adopted ordinances banning police from asking people about their immigration status.