Jan. 19--Even Donald Trump isn't crass enough to say the name out loud. But as he campaigns for the GOP nomination for president, Trump continues to pitch an immigration enforcement plan modeled after a 1950s deportation program dubbed "Operation Wetback."
The term is a derogatory reference to Mexicans crossing the Rio Grande, which forms almost two-thirds of the southern U.S. border.
Under the program launched by President Dwight Eisenhower, more than 1.3 million immigrants rounded up in the United States were loaded onto trains, buses and planes and deposited deep in Mexico's interior to prevent them from slipping back across the border.
Many of them never saw their families again.
Trump surged in the polls last summer after he accused Mexico of pushing its "criminals, drug dealers and rapists" into the U.S. To keep them out, he says he'd build a giant border wall -- and send Mexico the bill. And he'd dispatch a "deportation force" to remove the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who are already here.
Trump doubled down on that plan over the weekend, hours after GOP rival Sen. Marco Rubio suggested on NBC's "Meet the Press" that immigrants who have committed no serious crimes should be allowed to stay.
CNN's Jake Tapper challenged Trump about his enthusiasm for Eisenhower's program, pointing out that "a lot of people think that was a shameful chapter in American history." Trump replied that it was "a very effective chapter."
The program was officially launched in 1954, amid familiar circumstances: poverty and lack of opportunity in Mexico vs. the unmet labor needs of U.S. agribusiness.
Mexico's struggle to industrialize was threatened by the loss of cheap labor, as workers sought better-paying jobs north of the border -- with the encouragement of U.S. employers.
Then as now, there were many barriers to legal migration. Under Mexican law, workers weren't allowed to leave their country unless they had a signed contract from a foreign employer, but U.S. law barred employers from offering contracts to workers who weren't already here. Immigration fees and literacy exams also were prohibitive. None of that was enough to stop Mexican workers from crossing the border illegally.
