By Axios | Created at 2024-09-28 22:00:42 | Updated at 2024-09-30 05:24:46
1 day ago
Former President Donald Trump's call for historic "mass deportations" of immigrants from the United States is forcing the nation to revisit past expulsions that left deep wounds still felt today.
The big picture: From the Palmer Raids of Jewish and Italian immigrants of 1919 to the mass deportation of Mexican immigrants in the 1950s, previous deportation operations ignored civil liberties, heightened racial tensions and disrupted families of American citizens for generations.
Catch up quick: In campaign speeches, Trump has said he would launch "the largest deportation operation in American history" and end birthright citizenship as outlined in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
- Trump wants to mobilize ICE agents — along with the FBI, federal prosecutors, the National Guard, and even local law enforcement officers — to carry out deportations.
- He says he would start with mass deportations of Venezuelan migrants in Aurora, Colorado, and Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. As part of his call for deportations, Trump has pushed baseless claims that Haitian immigrants are eating house pets in Springfield, a debunked conspiracy theory that led to bomb threats in schools.
Reality check: To end birthright citizenship, the U.S. Constitution would have to be amended by three-fourths of the state legislatures or three-fourths of conventions called in each state for ratification — an unlikely event.
The Palmer Raids
A surge of Italian and Russian Jewish immigrants into many industrial cities at the turn of the century sparked a wave of anti-immigrant bigotry and fueled the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.
- A bomb outside Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's home in Washington, D.C. — along with pandemic flu, Russia's Bolshevik Revolution and the over-hyped "Red Scare" — gave the ambitious lawyer cover to go after those immigrants.
- Palmer dispatched young Justice Department lawyer J. Edgar Hoover to monitor immigrants suspected of holding radical political views, leading to the arrests of immigrants during simultaneous raids in major cities.
Thousands of people were arrested without warrants and with no regard for constitutional protections against unlawful searches and seizures.
- The deportations split up families and led to the creation of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The "Repatriations" of the 1930s
The Great Depression saw pressure from state and local governments on Mexicans and Mexican Americans to "return" to Mexico amid high unemployment in the U.S. and violent anti-Mexican sentiment.
- Under the guise of so-called repatriation, Mexican Americans were targeted in immigration raids or coerced under the threat of violence into leaving the United States.
- About a million people of Mexican descent were forced out of the U.S.
Between the lines: U.S. officials, who skirted birthright citizenship by saying they did not want to break up families, sent Mexican American children to Mexico, according to "Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s."
- Co-author Francisco Balderrama said some families hid children away with relatives in the U.S. to prevent them from being sent to a foreign country they had never visited.
- Among those who were forced to leave was Anthony Acevedo, a future World War II medic in the U.S. Army and Holocaust survivor.
Eisenhower's "Operation Wetback"
President Eisenhower's operation used military-style tactics to round up 1.3 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans across the country in the 1950s for what was then the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. "Wetback" is a racial slur for Mexicans.
- The deportations came after some Mexican American civil rights leaders, including lawyer Gus Garcia, urged the federal government to deport undocumented Mexican immigrants who were being exploited to keep wages down for poor Mexican Americans.
- Border agents raided Mexican American neighborhoods, demanded ID from "Mexican-looking" citizens in public, invaded private homes in the middle of the night, and harassed Mexican-owned businesses.
- More than 1 million were deported, separating families and creating corridos (traditional Mexican ballads) about family breakups still sung today.
A generation after the operation, many mainstream Latino civil rights groups changed from supporting deportations to actively opposing them.
The present mood
The intrigue: Despite cheers at Trump rallies of "send them back," any modern-day mass deportation effort would likely be met with resistance from Latino civil rights groups and elected officials, David J. Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, tells Axios.
- Today, there are elected Latinos in federal, state and local offices and well-organized civil rights and advocacy groups that weren't in place decades ago.
- Networks of churches and volunteers will likely offer shelter to migrants, as seen in the 1980s during Reagan-era raids of Central American immigrant communities.
- Armies of journalists, activists and social media influencers will document raids.
What we're watching: Businesses, schools, and farms will likely urge leaders against mass deportations.
- Any mass removal could result in unpicked crops rotting, American children lacking childcare, and a shortage of workers, leading to new inflation.
