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Operation Wetback
American history is riddled with injustice and racially driven movements. The acceptance of “illegal” immigrants has always been a huge subject of discussion among The United States of America and its government. The Mexican people have been at the forefront of the discussion for over 100 years because of the labor they have been used for in the states. People have often heard or used the statement of “They’re taking our jobs” in relation to undocumented immigrants. In reality our government has a long-lasting relationship of inviting immigrants into the states for hard labor, under paying them, abusing them and then deporting them.
The Bracero Program of 1942 to 1964 was created as an agreement between the Mexican government and the American government that allowed 4.6 million contracts to be fulfilled by Mexican men to work in the United States for agricultural labor needs and to maintain railroads. The program brought droves of Mexican immigrants into the United States and soon gained a dependence on them for the labor they were performing. Although there were rules set in place to ensure the fair payment of the Mexican men who were working under this program, lots of farmers were reluctant to pay what was outlined in the agreement. This led to immigrants from Mexico coming in illegally and finding jobs with farmers for a lower wage thus fueling more immigrants to enter the United States without permission.
In 1953 the United States Border Control head Harlon B. Carter set out to strengthen the immigration enforcement operations. Working hand in hand with United States President Eisenhower, Operation Wetback was created. The term “wetback” came from the idea that illegal Mexican immigrants were entering the United States by swimming across the Rio Grande (csuDHTV, 2021, 1:54.) The main objective of this operation was to stop unionization efforts within the fields, deport illegal immigrants and import Braceros as strike breakers (csuDHTV, 2021, 1:01.) The deportation efforts were carried out with the use of buses, planes and larger vehicles to locate and move groups of people out of the United States. They were held and transported for days without food or water, resulting in the death of multiple Mexican people. Not to mention that they were often taken to parts of Mexico they were not familiar with and left to fend for themselves. There was a reported number of 1.3 million “illegal” immigrants removed from the United States as a part of this operation.
Operation Wetback is just another example of how mistreated the Mexican people have been in relation to the United States government. Mexicans were brought in to do the work that the United States needed help with desperately and then thrown back into Mexico when it was convenient for the United States to do so. This also instilled the idea that the United States border control was an important and necessary part of the American government. Fueled by propaganda in media and a strong sentiment toward racism at the time, the operation was seen as just and successful by most of the American people.
Work cited
YouTube. (2021b, March 16). Operation Wetback. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ASJJgjP53ALinks to an external site.
Edited by Elizabeth Kapko on Jul 13 at 7:06pm