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By Patrick Osio, Jr./HispanicVista.com

   

    March 7, 2010

A continuing act: Distorting history on illegal immigration.

By Patrick Osio 

 The political season leading to national elections since the mid 1990s have been signaled by a rash of opinion/commentary articles on the evils of illegal immigrants. Deeper into the season candidates seeking political traction will blame illegal immigrants for our economic woes, high crime rates, and stealing jobs from Americans.

 

The typical mantra has been ‘what part of illegal do you not understand,’ however, this year there is a new twist, ‘round them up and deport them all,” proudly pointing that former presidents Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower did it. The claim is that the three presidents rid the country of illegal immigrants by rounding them up and deporting them, so if they could do it we can do the same.

 

As is typical with most rhetoric on the issue of illegal immigration, these claims are terrible distortions of the actual events.

 

During Hoover’s administration the nation went into the Great Depression and there were massive deportations mainly in California and Texas. Brown skinned were they US citizens or not, were held and deported without hearings or court interference. Tens of thousands of US citizens of Mexican heritage and even Native Americans with Spanish last names were thus deported. If this is someone’s idea of ‘success’ then we have a problem with national moral and Constitutional rights definitions.

 

As regards Truman’s attempt to rein in illegal immigration, the story is far different than anti-illegal immigrants retell it. On July 13, 1951, President Truman sent a special message to Congress on the Employment of Agricultural Workers from Mexico. He made this observation, “During and since the last war, the recurrent shortages of farm labor in the United States have made the addition of contract workers from Mexico a vital factor in bringing in the crops.” (He was referring to the Bracero program.)

 

A comment regarding illegal immigrants reads, “Since these unfortunate people are here illegally, they are subject to deportation if caught by our immigration authorities. They have to hide and yet must work to live. They are thus in no position to bargain with those who might choose to exploit them. And many of them are exploited, I regret to say, and are left in abject poverty. They live always under the threat of exposure and deportation. They are unable, therefore, to protest or to protect themselves.”

 

Truman’s observation, “Everyone suffers from the presence of these illegal immigrants in the community. They themselves are hurt, first of all. Our own workers--as well as the legal contract workers from Mexico-are hurt by the lowering of working and living standards…. If we are to begin to meet the basic problem, we must do two things right away. First, we must put a stop to the employment of illegal immigrants. Second, we must improve the use of our domestic labor force.”*

 

President Truman was the first President who openly accepted that the US needed foreign workers and wanted a continuation of the Bracero program and that it was the hiring outside the Bracero program by the agricultural sector that was the cause of illegal immigration. Truman urged Congress to pass laws prohibiting hiring illegal immigrants and improve our domestic labor force. Congress did not act.

 

As for President Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback that supposedly rid the nation of, depending on what blog or commentary one reads, ranges from 130,000 to 1.3 million and even 13 million illegal immigrants, the facts is that it was around 32,000. The claim that that Eisenhower launched the operation because WWII returning soldiers needed the jobs taken by illegal immigrants has little merit since the GI’s had been back for nine years.

 

The reason, as outlined by Prof. Paul Ehrlich in his 1978 book The Golden Door, was that Eisenhower main concern was the growing corruption in the private and public sector using and protecting illegal immigrants for personal and political profit. He did want to end illegal immigration because he could not stop the greed and political influence peddling. On June 17, 1954, Operation Wetback commenced continuing for 17 days apprehending the 32,000 illegal immigrants. The operation did at least have the effect of having agricultural growers increase the contracting of Mexican workers through the Bracero program.

 

Immigration experts have long contended that massive immigration takes place due to two factors called “push” and “pull.” The push being the need to seek better conditions somewhere else, and the pull where those conditions can be met. There is no doubt that millions of people from Mexico and Central America have a desperate need to improve their lives, and they see the US as the place where they can fulfill their need and in fact do, as they are illegally given jobs on arrival.

 

It should have never been a question of “keeping illegal immigrants out” rather how to discourage them from coming.  Remove the pull and though the push may still persist there is no pull.

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Patrick Osio is Editor of HispanicVista.com and columnist.

 *Recommended reading:

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=368&st=&st1

Special Message to the Congress on the Employment of Agricultural Workers from Mexico  

The Golden Door by Paul Ehrlich (Amazon)

_____________________________________________________

 Patrick Osio is the Editor of HispanicVista.com and Vice President of the Baja California Medical Tourism Association. Contact at POsioJr@aol.com or at Posio@aol.com

Patrick Osio, Jr. has written a short but intensive manual on the Mexican perspective on numerous issues between our two countries. The manual is an in depth primer on the culture and protocol for better understanding Mexicans that in turn allows establishing personal and business relationships, and how to avoid the most common faux pas that can ruin relationships and business deals.

For information on purchasing, write to HVCstore@aol.com

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