- — -
George Washington Admirer wrote:
> July 06, 2006 edition –
> http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html
> How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico
> By John Dillin
> WASHINGTON
> George W. Bush isn’t the first Republican president to face a
> full-blown immigration crisis on the US-Mexican border.
> Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into
> the White House, America’s southern frontier was as porous as a
> spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and
> waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California,
> Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.
> President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly
> and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents –
> less than one-tenth of today’s force. The operation is still highly
> praised among veterans of the Border Patrol.
> Although there is little to no record of this operation in Ike’s
> official papers, one piece of historic evidence indicates how he felt.
> In 1951, Ike wrote a letter to Sen. William Fulbright (D) of Arkansas.
> The senator had just proposed that a special commission be created by
> Congress to examine unethical conduct by government officials who
> accepted gifts and favors in exchange for special treatment of private
> individuals.
> General Eisenhower, who was gearing up for his run for the presidency,
> said "Amen" to Senator Fulbright’s proposal. He then quoted a report in
> The New York Times, highlighting one paragraph that said: "The rise in
> illegal border-crossing by Mexican ‘wetbacks’ to a current rate of more
> than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious
> relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the
> farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the
> Federal Government."
> Years later, the late Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower’s first attorney
> general, said in an interview with this writer that the president had a
> sense of urgency about illegal immigration when he took office.
> America "was faced with a breakdown in law enforcement on a very large
> scale," Mr. Brownell said. "When I say large scale, I mean hundreds of
> thousands were coming in from Mexico [every year] without restraint."
> Although an on-and-off guest-worker program for Mexicans was operating
> at the time, farmers and ranchers in the Southwest had become dependent
> on an additional low-cost, docile, illegal labor force of up to 3
> million, mostly Mexican, laborers.
> According to the Handbook of Texas Online, published by the University
> of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association, this
> illegal workforce had a severe impact on the wages of ordinary working
> Americans. The Handbook Online reports that a study by the President’s
> Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas in 1950 found that cotton
> growers in the Rio Grande Valley, where most illegal aliens in Texas
> worked, paid wages that were "approximately half" the farm wages paid
> elsewhere in the state.
> Profits from illegal labor led to the kind of corruption that
> apparently worried Eisenhower. Joseph White, a retired 21-year veteran
> of the Border Patrol, says that in the early 1950s, some senior US
> officials overseeing immigration enforcement "had friends among the
> ranchers," and agents "did not dare" arrest their illegal workers.
> Walt Edwards, who joined the Border Patrol in 1951, tells a similar
> story. He says: "When we caught illegal aliens on farms and ranches,
> the farmer or rancher would often call and complain [to officials in El
> Paso]. And depending on how politically connected they were, there
> would be political intervention. That is how we got into this mess we
> are in now."
> Bill Chambers, who worked for a combined 33 years for the Border Patrol
> and the then-called US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS),
> says politically powerful people are still fueling the flow of illegals.
> During the 1950s, however, this "Good Old Boy" system changed under
> Eisenhower – if only for about 10 years.
> In 1954, Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph "Jumpin’ Joe" Swing, a
> former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the
> new INS commissioner.
> Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas
> and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were
> dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General
> Swing’s close connections to the president shielded him – and the
> Border Patrol – from meddling by powerful political and corporate
> interests.
> One of Swing’s first decisive acts was to transfer certain entrenched
> immigration officials out of the border area to other regions of the
> country where their political connections with people such as Senator
> Johnson would have no effect.
> Then on June 17, 1954, what was called "Operation Wetback" began.
> Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the
> roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through
> agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end
> of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another
> 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.
> By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and
> Idaho, and eastward to Texas.
> By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an
> estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State
> voluntarily.
> Unlike today, Mexicans caught in the roundup were not simply released
> at the border, where they could easily reenter the US. To discourage
> their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens
> deep within Mexico before being set free.
> Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the
> Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port
> Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south.
> The sea voyage was "a rough trip, and they did not like it," says Don
> Coppock, who worked his way up from Border Patrolman in 1941 to
> eventually head the Border Patrol from 1960 to 1973.
> Mr. Coppock says he "cannot understand why [President] Bush let
> [today's] problem get away from him as it has. I guess it was his
> compassionate conservatism, and trying to please [Mexican President]
> Vincente Fox."
> There are now said to be 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the
> US. Of the Mexicans who live here, an estimated 85 percent are here
> illegally.
> Border Patrol vets offer tips on curbing illegal immigration
> One day in 1954, Border Patrol agent Walt Edwards picked up a newspaper
> in Big Spring, Texas, and saw some startling news. The government was
> launching an all-out drive to oust illegal aliens from the United
> States.
> The orders came straight from the top, where the new president, Dwight
> Eisenhower, had put a former West Point classmate, Gen. Joseph Swing,
> in charge of immigration enforcement.
> General Swing’s fast-moving campaign soon secured America’s borders –
> an accomplishment no other president has since equaled. Illegal
> migration had dropped 95 percent by the late 1950s.
> Several retired Border Patrol agents who took part in the 1950s effort,
> including Mr. Edwards, say much of what Swing did could be repeated
> today.
> "Some say we cannot send 12 million illegals now in the United States
> back where they came from. Of course we can!" Edwards says.
> Donald Coppock, who headed the Patrol from 1960 to 1973, says that if
> Swing and Ike were still running immigration enforcement, "they’d be on
> top of this in a minute."
> William Chambers, another ’50s veteran, agrees. "They could do a pretty
> good job" sealing the border.
> Edwards says: "When we start enforcing the law, these various
> businesses are, on their own, going to replace their [illegal]
> workforce with a legal workforce."
> While Congress debates building a fence on the border, these veterans
> say other actions should have higher priority.
> 1. End the current practice of taking captured Mexican aliens to the
> border and releasing them. Instead, deport them deep into Mexico, where
> return to the US would be more costly.
> 2. Crack down hard on employers who hire illegals. Without jobs, the
> aliens won’t come.
> 3. End "catch and release" for non-Mexican aliens. It is common for
> illegal migrants not from Mexico to be set free after their arrest if
> they promise to appear later before a judge. Few show up.
> The Patrol veterans say enforcement could also be aided by a legalized
> guest- worker program that permits Mexicans to register in their
> country for temporary jobs in the US. Eisenhower’s team ran such a
> program. It permitted up to 400,000 Mexicans a year to enter the US for
> various agriculture jobs that lasted for 12 to 52 weeks.
> · John Dillin is former managing editor of the Monitor.
> —
> http://www.predatoryaliens.com
> http://www.immigrationshumancost.org
> http://www.daylaborers.org
> http://www.newnation.com/index2.html
> "The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave" by Heather Mac Donald
> http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_illegal_alien.html
> http://idexer.com
> www.AmericanPatrol.com
> www.SaveOurState.org
Bush ranks as a midget in the pantheon of American Presidents.
Arch
