When Trump supporters envision an America made great again, they are likely picturing the 1950s: a decade in which the U.S. military was preeminent in the world, its economy enjoyed a trade surplus, and its population was homogeneous. Yet this mythical vision of the past obscures as much as it reveals. For it was during this decade that the U.S. government made commitments that would lead to futile military interventions, sapping the nation’s martial confidence and economic strength. And it was during these years that a postwar civil rights movement took shape that would desegregate the South and decouple the reflexive equation of American whiteness with American citizenship.
It was squarely within the mythical 1950s that the U.S. government launched the most public effort to deport large numbers of undocumented Mexican migrants: Operation Wetback. And it’s this example that many on the Trump team are citing as they seek to implement a mass deportation program. But why this campaign from 1954, when there are more recent attempts to draw experience from?
The reasons all fit into a mythical reading of the 1950s. Operation Wetback was big, bold, and public. It was effective. And it was quick. Yet, leavening myth with reality, we can now conclude its approach was short-sighted, its conduct was brutish, and its long term results were fleeting. Operation Wetback was futile. It is a cautionary tale in trusting the political platitudes and simplistic prescriptions that promise a rapid solution to the immigration crisis.
The number of undocumented border crossings, as indicated by the U.S. Border Patrol’s (BP) apprehension of Mexican migrants, was rising in the years before Operation Wetback: 458,215 in 1950, 500,628 in 1951, 534,538 in 1952, and 875, 318 in 1953. BP agents had been using various methods to stem the tide, notably fences and cross-border raids. So when President Dwight Eisenhower appointed an old classmate from West Point, Gen. Joseph Swing, as the new commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in May 1954, many hoped border enforcement would be instilled with a degree of military efficiency. Swing was soon promising a swift conclusion to the “wetback problem.” An economic recession, which nearly doubled the U.S. unemployment rate between 1953 and 1954, put the issue of undocumented Mexican labor migration into sharp focus for Americans.
A stage was being set. The INS worked hard during the first months of 1954 to ensure American agricultural growers had a plentiful supply of documented Mexican workers. Advance public announcements of Border Patrol roundups convinced many undocumented migrants and their families to voluntarily leave the United States. The U.S. Department of State informed Mexico’s government to prepare for a sudden and large influx of its nationals. Then in mid-June 1954, “Operation Wetback” began.