Trump's mass deportation idea was tried in '30s

[TexasTowelie]

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for mass deportation of millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, as well as their American-born children, bears similarities to a large-scale removal that many Mexican-American families faced 85 years ago.

During the Great Depression, counties and cities in the American Southwest and Midwest forced Mexican immigrants and their families to leave the U.S. over concerns they were taking jobs away from whites despite their legal right to stay.

The result: Around 500,000 to 1 million Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were pushed out of the country during the 1930s repatriation, as the removal is sometimes called.

During that time, immigrants were rounded up and sent to Mexico, sometimes in public places and often without formal proceedings. Others, scared under the threat of violence, left voluntarily.

Read more: http://lubbockonline.com/national-news/2015-08-31/trumps-mass-deportation-idea-was-tried-30s#comment-379644

[Sinan]

1. The next time someone says that the constitution is not a moveable feast

tell them about this story. We actually deported US citizens en masse without blinking an eye. Since this time, no amendments have been passed making this illegal, it was simply not part of the way we looked at each other in respect to established law. One might argue that the law was ALWAYS intended solely for white men, no one else. They would be right. But the words in the constitution do not specifically say "this pertains only to white men of a certain European descent in X proportions". It was just understood that the law meant one thing for white men, another for women, blacks, Indians, Jews, Chinese and so on. So how did this change? Because of society and the force of reason, the desire to be inclusive, fair and adhere to the true founding principles of the enlightenment regardless of the bias or racism or nativism of the founders. We just decided that a man is a man, a woman is a woman and a person is a person and this type of legal and social prejudice was no longer going to be tolerated. What changed? We changed.

[robertpaulsen]

2. When I first saw the headline, I immediately thought 1830s.

You know, the Trail of Tears? But I had no idea we were doing this to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the 1930s. Thanks for the history lesson!

[FormerRepublicanNow]

4. Not the only time - Operation Wetback (1954)

Operation Wetback was a system of tactical control and cooperation within the U.S. Border Patrol and alongside the Mexican government. On May 17th, 1954 command teams of 12 Border Patrol agents, buses, planes, and temporary processing stations began locating, processing, and deporting Mexicans that had illegally entered the United States. 750 immigration and border patrol officers and investigators, 300 jeeps, cars and buses, and 7 airplanes were allocated for the operation. Teams were focused on quick processing and deportation, as planes were able to coordinate ground efforts more quickly and increase mobility. Those deported were handed off to Mexican officials, who in turn deported them into central Mexico where there were many labor opportunities. While the operation would include the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, its main targets were border areas in Texas and California. Overall, there were 1,078,168 apprehensions made in the first year of Operation Wetback, with 170,000 being captured from May to July 1954. The total number of apprehensions would fall to just 242,608 in 1955, and would continuously decline by year until 1962, when there was a slight rise in apprehended workers. During the entirety of the Operation, border recruitment of illegal workers by American growers continued due largely to the inexpensiveness of illegal labor and the desire of growers to avoid the bureaucratic obstacles of the Bracero program; the continuation of illegal immigration despite the efforts of Operation Wetback was largely responsible for the failure of the program.

[FormerRepublicanNow]

5. Another article

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html

[TexasTowelie]

7. Thank you for the links

and welcome to DU!

[pampango]

3. It's being done in Venezuela right now.

Memo to Trump: This is what mass deportation looks like

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-08-28/memo-trump-what-mass-deportation-looks

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. The Dominican Republic has been shoving their entire black population over the border into Haiti.

[yardwork]

8. They were sent after the harvest was in, of course.

After the work was complete, before they were paid, they were deported. Woody Guthrie wrote a song about it and it still happens a lot today.