"Operation Wetback"

The remaining candidates in the quadrennial circus known as "the primary election season" seem to have forgotten that many Americans will consider the candidates positions on immigration "reform" legislation before selecting the candidate that they will ultimately support.

While not to be interpreted as either an endorsement or condemnation of any given position, this posting will provide a brief review of American immigration policies, particularly those applicable to Mexican nationals, during the 20^th Century.

Background

The contribution of labor provided by Mexican nationals to the ultimate emergence of the United States as a world economic power has been debated for years, without successful resolution, and will not be reviewed here. Instead, as mentioned above, we will instead devote our attentions to the historical record regarding the management of immigration to the United States with emphasis on Mexican nationals that have, or have not, entered the United Sates in compliance with the prevailing immigration laws of those periods.

The first "active" recruitment of Mexican nationals to work in the United States was in response to the labor shortage caused by America's entry into what was then known as the "Great War" (World War I). In actuality, there was never a formal program that regulated such immigration but it was more a case of the American authorities simply ignoring the obvious in the interest of "national security." The long term consequence of this "program" was that large commercial agriculture interests now found themselves "addicted" to "cheap Mexican labor."

It was during the 1920s that Mexican labor first entered the American industrial sector as unskilled labor willing to accept lower wages than their American counterparts. This, naturally, resulted in strong anti-Mexican sentiments on the parts of "native" workers as well as other immigrants.