Kitty Calavita, Chancellor’s Professor Emerita of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine, discuss the historical context and implications of Operation Wetback, a 1954 U.S. mass deportation of Mexican immigrants, and its relevance to President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation plans. Calavita explains that Operation Wetback aimed to address the economic utility of undocumented workers and political backlash against them, particularly during a recession and Cold War rhetoric. She highlights the logistical challenges of such operations, including the integration of immigrants into various industries and the legal protections against random stops. Calavita suggests that while high-profile roundups may occur, a massive deportation campaign is unlikely due to economic and logistical obstacles.

Please find a slightly edited version of the transcript below

Transcript

John Torpey 

Perhaps the most consistent promise of presidential candidate and now President Elect Donald Trump has been his plan to deport millions of illegal immigrants from the United States to their countries of origin. The United States did something like this more than half a century ago in what was unceremoniously called Operation Wetback, using the derogatory term for those who crossed the Rio Grande River to get into the United States in those days. What might that history tell us about Trump’s plans for a mass deportation event now? Welcome to International Horizons, a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. My name is John Torpey, and I’m director of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. We’re fortunate to have with us today Kitty Colavita, who’s Chancellor’s professor emerita of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California Irvine. And full disclosure, she was once a colleague when I was at UC Irvine number of years ago. She’s published widely in the fields of immigration and immigration lawmaking. An early book called Inside The State: The Bracero Program Immigration and the INS, first published in 1992 documented the internal dynamics of the immigration and national Naturalization Service in shaping the agricultural guest worker program known as the Bracero program. And the book is still available on Quid Pro Quo Books and also as an ebook on Kindle, etc. Another book, Immigrants at the Margins: Law, Race, and Exclusion in Southern Europe, examined the formal and informal legal processes that contribute to immigrant marginalization in Italy and Spain. Other books and articles focus on the Chinese exclusion laws financial crime and the grievance process in California prisons. Thanks so much for being with us today, Kitty Calavita.

Kitty Calavita 

Thank you for inviting me. I’m happy to be here.

John Torpey 

Great to have you. So let’s start with some background. I mean, first, can you just explain what Operation Wetback was and what led to its adoption? It seems to me what little I know it seems to have been a had a rather puzzling history in the sense that it was a mass deportation project in the middle of a labor importation program, namely the Bracero program.

Kitty Calavita 

That’s right, it is a puzzle. So the Operation Wetback was a program started in 1954, which was a high profile campaign to round up and deport unauthorized Mexican immigrants. And it really was focused on Mexican immigrants, and you’re right, it was called Operation Wetback, which was a slur on on Mexican immigrants who crossed the Rio Grande. So, it lasted about a year, little over a year, and it was said to have deported about a million immigrants. But more about that later on. So it is the puzzle, because this was happening at the height of the Bracero Program, which was a program to import Mexican farm workers to Western Growers in the United States, and provide Western Growers with a steady stream of so called Braceros. And the fact that at the same time, in 1954, there was this campaign to round up unauthorized Mexican immigrants seemed, at first glance, to be sort of in contradiction with the fact that Western Growers were so dependent on Mexican farm workers. And this puzzle is based on a dilemma that on one side is the fact that a steady stream of vulnerable undocumented workers is so useful to employers and in a market economy, I should say, consumers, and yet, on the other hand, the political backlash that kind of stream of vulnerable undocumented workers, presents especially in times of recession or depression, or even, as we’ve seen lately, inflation that has people concerned about the economy. So there is this dilemma in terms of the economic utility of this vulnerable workforce versus the backlash that it creates. The Bracero Program, which provided a steady stream of workers to Western Growers who could be deported or sent back to Mexico after the season, seemed to be a perfect solution to that kind of dilemma, because it provided a vulnerable workforce at the same time it was regulated. But side by side with the Bracero Program, there continued to be a stream of unauthorized Mexican farm workers, mostly Mexican at that time. So by 1951, President Eisenhower established a commission on migratory labor that presented a report which sounded an alarm against this unauthorized stream of migrant workers, and it talked aboutimmigrant workers depressing wages in areas that they were concentrated in, replacing American farm workers, the domestic supply of American farm workers. And so that was sort of the first alarm in 1951 that this unauthorized stream was coming in and depressing wages and so forth. At the same time, employers who hired Bracero workers complained about the competition that they faced with growers who employed unauthorized workers and who were even more vulnerable and low wage than Braceros. So that was 1951, 52, then in 1953, there was a pretty severe recession. And by 1954all of this combined with heated up Cold War rhetoric, so suddenly, Cold War warriors were talking about the so called open border with Mexico and the stream of, quote, communists, subversive and criminals of all sorts coming through the Mexican border, and that that border that they needed to crack down on that border, and deport all of these illegal workers who, illegal immigrants, who were coming through. So it was a combination of all of these things, and part of it was the desire to shore up the Bracero Program, which was thought to be a perfect solution to this contradiction between economic and political demands. And so in 1954 the President, the Attorney General, many members of Congress were very much in favor and the head of the INS at the time, the Immigration Naturalization Service, a man named commissioners generals, actually general Swing. They were very much in favor of a vast campaign to deport hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of Mexican immigrants. The fledgling labor movement was also behind it, and the opposition consisted mostly of growers, allies in Congress, of many of whom, of whom there were many and very powerful, and yet they were defeated by this Cold War rhetoric and the and the concern during a recession about unauthorized workers coming through. So that’s basically to my answer to this question about a puzzle, because, you know, it was meant in a way to shore up the Bracero Program, which was a more regulated kind of answer to the economic utility of immigrants, and at the same time responding to this Cold War rhetoric.

John Torpey 

Right. Got it so. I mean, you know, I’m curious about the political constellation behind this. I mean, you just described some of it, but the key, perhaps the key factor here, was the interests of growers, seems to me, and I guess, I guess the question is, you know, how much is that true today? You know what, what role or employers going I mean, it’s not, perhaps, nearly as much about agriculture as it is about industrial work now, meat packing plants and but maybe you could talk a little bit about how the political constellation look then, and how that compare with what’s going on today.

Kitty Calavita 

Well, the head of the INS, General Swing, was very aware that growers would strenuously object to something like Operation Wetback unless they were able to access a ready supply of Braceros. So what he did was he went to growers and their allies in Congress, and he said: Look, don’t worry, we’re going to deport all these people, but basically, we’ll just turn around and bring them back in as Braceros, and they will be a little bit regulated. But you know, if you violate some of the regulations, it won’t be a huge deal. So they promised employers that they would be very generous in their providing Braceros. And keep in mind, these Braceros were delivered to growers on their on their doorstep. You know, it was very convenient, in a way, more so than the undocumented. So growers opposition was sort of neutralized by the fact that they were promised, and in fact, they were that promise was indeed made good on that they would be given a plentiful supply of Braceros to fill any labor needs that they had. And at the same time that the enforcement of the various provisions of those Bracero contracts wouldn’t be too strict. So, a major difference today, like you said, is that immigrants are far more integrated into various industries and across the country. I mean, they were, to a certain extent, back in the 1950s but nowhere near what they are today. So they’re in industries across the country, from meat packing to construction to hotels and restaurants and so while Operation Wetback like its name, focused on Mexican workers and their families, Trump promises sweeps and roundups across the country. So he’s already facing opposition from various civil liberties groups like the ACLU and many other nonprofits who’ve already begun to organize their opposition to it. It’s unclear at this point whether employers will flex their muscle and oppose it. It all depends, frankly, on whether the massive roundups that Trump is talking about materialize, really materialize, or remain at the level of political rhetoric. Because one of the things about the political backlash against immigrants that I mentioned is that political rhetoric that something is being done can be very effective. So, you know, it’s and we don’t have anything like the Bracero Program, which was promised to employers. So yeah, if this thing really gets off the ground the way Trump is talking about I can see that not only employers, but others, consumers, for example, will start forming a pretty strong opposition to it. So we might be getting ahead of ourselves, but!

John Torpey 

Yes, well, that’s true, of course. But it seems as though, you know, a lot of people think this is for real. On the other hand, it’s easier said than done. And so I’m wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about, you know, the details of how these people were rounded up in 1954 I mean, how does that actually work?

Kitty Calavita 

Yeah, so, um, governors in southwest states and local police forces joined with the INS, the Immigration Naturalization Service, and its border patrol, and they came into the cordoned off neighborhoods in major cities for inspections and rounded people up en masse. They boarded busses and trains and set up roadblocks. The police sometimes arrested people on flimsy vagrancy charges and turned them over to the border patrol for deportation and for remote agricultural areas in California and Arizona. Special mobile force was set up to get into the fields and round people up, and it was said to have deported a million people in 1954. There are some dispute among historians about those numbers, but there’s little dispute that many people left voluntarily in the face of the Blitz, because it was terrifying. And the INS hailed it as a success, but there was wild, widespread abuse, with reports that legal residents and even citizens had been rounded up and deported, and many people harassed and beaten. So it went down eventually. I mean, historically, it’s seen as a scandal, but the INS at the time declared that it was a success. So that’s how they did it. They had road blocks and cordoned off neighborhoods and got on to trains and busses and and stopped people randomly and entered factory farms and agricultural areas. So this time around, it seems to me that it’s going to be much more challenging to do what Trump says he’s going to do. And the logistic, some of them are logistical challenges, and first is a simple of issue of how and where to locate people to deport. Like we said, they’re in a range of industries all across the United States, integrated into communities and neighborhoods. Presumably, they would start first with jails and prisons and try to deport people who had been who had committed crimes. But finding people to deport outside of the prisons and jails is made all the more challenging by provisions in the Fourth Amendment case law that protect people from random stops and searches. Now, having said that, I should say there’s a huge caveat in that protection, because it’s complicated. Because what’s now called the Customs and Border Protection arm of the of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been given wide discretion, has for a very long time, been given wide discretion within 100 miles of any border. And surprisingly, most something most people don’t know, that’s both land and sea borders, and that 100 mile distance from any land or sea border is home to two thirds of the American of the US population, including all of Florida, the entire coastline of California, well, the entire coastline of the United States, New York City, all of New York City, all of Los Angeles, Chicago and other major cities. So the discretion that the Customs and Border Protection arm of ICE has is enormous, and within that area, the Border Patrol can set up permanent checkpoints. There’s 71 permanent checkpoints now across the country where they can randomly stop people and, John, you and I know that there was one in Orange County when we were both at UC Irvine. There was one just there, just south of Orange County, 100 miles from the Mexican border. But there’s 71 all across the country, and they can also do roving patrols. When they have reasonable suspicion that someone is illegal, they can stop and detain them. But this step still leaves several questions: Where would all these people be housed, assuming we’re talking about the large numbers, and at what cost? And furthermore, currently people rounded up in this way have the right to a hearing before an immigration court, which has notorious backlogs assuming that they’re not simply going to be eliminated. Then there’s the issue of so called sanctuary states. This is something that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to living in California, because California is a so called sanctuary state. There’s 11 such states across the country and many major cities, LA, San Francisco, Berkeley, where I live, have passed laws stipulating that local law enforcement won’t cooperate with ICE and that no resources requiring land will be used in collaboration with ICE. Of course, all bets are off. If Trump manages to use the military, as he said, that he may use the military to do these, to do this. And then, of course, there is the challenge of putting people on flights out of the US to deport them that requires that the destination country allow them back. And there are some countries of Venezuela, China, and others that have strained relationships with the United States and are unlikely to allow entry to such deportation flights. So there’s a lot of logistical challenges to what Trump says he’s going to do.

John Torpey 

Indeed, so it seems. So, I wondered, I mentioned in my introduction of you that you had also written about immigrant experience, immigration experience in in Europe, in Italy and Spain in particular, and I wonder, you know, does that experience shed any light on what’s gonna what seems like it’s gonna be happening here in the next few months?

Kitty Calavita 

Well, I think the light that it sheds on our experience here in the United States is that Italy and Spain, as the United States, has an issue with birth rates and the fact that they’re not at replacement levels, and so both Italy and Spain needs to bring in immigrants, not only for economic reasons, because they’re useful to employers, but also for reasons of replacement population. They need to, they need younger generations to come in and care for the elderly, but also to do the work that no longer gets done because, or no longer would get done because fewer fewer people were having, or rather, people are having fewer and fewer babies, and it’s a similar situation, not quite so urgent in the United States. So there is still a very strong economic need for immigrants, and yet there is a political backlash. Those countries historically have been less diverse racially than the United States, and it has struck chords of racism when they see when Italians and Spaniards see people coming in from from Africa and Asia and other countries. So there is that dilemma, again, in terms of economics and political but the logistics are different, most obviously because their borders are almost entirely sea borders. And, you know, they’ve they face the issue the governments of both countries face the issues of stopping these vessels in their you know, on their way, and have been accused of inhumane policies when they do that. So the dilemmas are sort of similar, but the logistics are quite different.

John Torpey 

Right. And I want to say, thanks for pointing to the dilemma that you’ve just described, which is, of course, the fact that there’s a kind of xenophobic, you know, sensibility that’s abroad, you know, that’s partially response to the economic situation, the sense that the economy is not turning out jobs or improving wages the way it might be doing. But at the same time, we need, you know, workers. We need labor power. And I suppose that situation is even more dire in Italy and Spain, which, if I’m not mistaken, have lower birth rates native fertility than than the United States. So it’s a strange kind of, you know, queer squaring of the circle that has to take place. And in any case, what you know seems to be coming at us in the near future. Whether it’s feasible and practicable is a different question. But you know, you emphasized in your one of your answers, the rhetoric, and maybe you could actually say a couple more things about that, that the rhetoric can be very effective. Well, what do you mean by that exactly.

Kitty Calavita 

So, um, I suspect that given the obstacles, given the dilemmas that I’ve talked about, and given the logistical and legal obstacles to doing everything that Trump says he’s going to do, I suspect that what we’ll see is some high profile roundups, especially getting people from jails and prisons and deporting them. Maybe some factory inspections, maybe some agricultural inspections and workers deported. But so these will be high profile, but pretty discrete roundups. And then I hope, in a way, I hope this, this is what will happen. I believe that these will be touted as by the Trump administration, as a big success. And it may be that this high profile campaign will like happened with Operation Wetback, will encourage some people to leave voluntarily, will deter others from coming but I doubt that 11 million people will be deported by the Trump administration, as he’s claiming he will do, because of the logistical issues, but more importantly, because of how powerfully important immigrants are to the economy, and how useful to employers, But to the economy overall, including to consumers. And if this were to be a full blown operation, then we would see pushback, serious pushback, from employers. And so I suspect it will be sort of blowing smoke, as you’ve described, and will rely on high profile, high publicity roundups, but not a massive deportation campaign of the sort that’s been promised. But I want to say here that that doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t have devastating effects on individuals, because there will be some individuals deported to, and some of whom may not even be familiar with the country that they’re deported to, and it will have devastating effects on not only those people, but also people who remain in danger in their home countries and can’t come and claim asylum in the United States. I mean, we haven’t talked about that part of it. It’s not my expertise, but the whole asylum policy side of this will also have devastating consequences.

John Torpey 

Right. I think that’s a hugely important note on which to end, but extremely informative discussion. Thanks so much. I want to thank Kitty Calavita for sharing her insights about Operation Wetback and what it might tell us about Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportation. Look for International Horizons on the New Books Network and remember to subscribe and rate International Horizons on Spotify and Apple podcasts. I want to thank Claire Centofanti for her technical assistance, as well as to acknowledge Duncan McKay for sharing his song International Horizons as the theme music for the show. This is John Torpey saying thanks for joining us, and we look forward to having you with us for the next episode of International Horizons.