Huffington Post
By Roque PLanas
September 29, 2015
Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump likened his immigration strategy to
the mass deportation program that expelled roughly 1 million
undocumented immigrants
to Mexico, along with an unknown number of U.S. citizens, six decades
ago.
In
an interview with CBS News posted on Sunday, Trump said that if he
became president, he’d emulate former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s
1954 mass deportation program
-- known by the offensive name of "Operation Wetback" -- and would send
undocumented immigrants in the U.S. back to their countries of origin.
Trump
told journalist Scott Pelley that he'd “round them all up in a very
humane way, in a very nice way, and they're gonna be happy, because they
want to be legalized.”
When
Pelley asked the GOP hopeful whether such a mass round up was even
possible and what it would look like, Trump replied, “Did you like
Dwight Eisenhower as a president
at all?”
Seemingly trying to figure out where the conversation was going, Pelley replied, “Well, I wasn’t around during Eisenhower’s ..."
“But he was a fair man,” Trump cut in.
“He was a great American,” Pelley agreed.
“He did this with over a million people,” Trump responded.
However,
many people who have studied the mass deportation program view it as
the opposite of “humane.” The program expelled Mexican nationals and
U.S. citizens, including
children forced to leave with their undocumented parents.
“Like
usual, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Rodolfo Acuña,
professor emeritus of Chicano studies at California State University,
Northridge, told The Huffington
Post. “It’s ridiculous.”
Acuña
noted that then-Attorney General Herbert Brownell, one of the pioneers
of the ramping up of border security that accompanied "Operation
Wetback," had once suggested
that killing people who crossed into the United States illegally might
act as a deterrent.
“Brownell
said, 'Just give them some live ammo, let them shoot a few people. Then
everyone will be scared and they won’t come across the border,'” Acuña
said. “Really
humane.”
At
the time, U.S. authorities used trains and ships to send Mexican
nationals deep into the interior of the country. “[A] congressional
investigation likened one vessel
(where a riot took place on board) to an ‘18th century slave ship’ and a
‘penal hell ship,’” according to historian Mae Ngai.
“In
addition to violating the civil liberties of American citizens via
questionable expulsions, ‘Operation Wetback’ violated the human rights
of the people being deported,”
writes Gilbert Paul Carrasco, a professor of law who focuses on civil
rights. “Deportations were characterized by disrespect, rudeness, and
intimidation. Reports even mentioned immigration officers ‘collecting
fares’ from persons being deported.”
And as if to add insult to injury, the program’s name uses a term now almost universally viewed as derogatory.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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