How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico

[peejay 327]

How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico

By John Dillin

The Christian Science Monitor

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.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html

This is a far different version than the left wing hatchet job of the pro-illegal alien Arizona Republic that was posted earlier. The article conveniently left out enough details to be extremely bias, if not, totally deceptive. Arizona Rep. Russell Pearce also took a lefty hatchet job in the article.

Of course this is not 1953 and there are easier ways to crack down on illegal aliens. And the illegal labor has moved out of the fields and into mainstream jobs Americans once did. I hope people can see the similarities to our modern institutional corruption of our government by corrupt businesses. We all witnessed the show raids on businesses and illegals earlier this year when Bush in an unholy alliance with Senate Democrats were pushing his amnesty / guest worker scheme. They still arrest and deport when it serves their propoganda purposes. Funny how the raids disappeared after the US House killed their amnesty plans. Smells like institutional corruption to me.

[kirk and Jenny 0]

Okay, this says basically there was a problem and nothing about their enforced remedies. What was posted before was a solution by Eisenhower, that was highly illegal. As an ex member of the political left, who hates the vermin who are the political left today because they literally commited mass murder against my friends because ala Adolf Hitler they considered them ("genetically inferior) and hide behind the secret ballot so they are not convicted for their crimes against humanity and I call bullshit on them; I call bullshit on you; you propose something that has nothining to do with Eisenhower illegal, anti-humanity policies, that subsequently, the United States Supreme Court has struck down.

[peejay 327]

Okay, this says basically there was a problem and nothing about their enforced remedies. What was posted before was a solution by Eisenhower, that was highly illegal. As an ex member of the political left, who hates the vermin who are the political left today because they literally commited mass murder against my friends because ala Adolf Hitler they considered them ("genetically inferior) and hide behind the secret ballot so they are not convicted for their crimes against humanity and I call bullshit on them; I call bullshit on you; you propose something that has nothining to do with Eisenhower illegal, anti-humanity policies, that subsequently, the United States Supreme Court has struck down.

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[homesick_american 1]

This is a far different version than the left wing hatchet job of the pro-illegal alien Arizona Republic that was posted earlier. The article conveniently left out enough details to be extremely bias, if not, totally deceptive. Arizona Rep. Russell Pearce also took a lefty hatchet job in the article.

Of course this is not 1953 and there are easier ways to crack down on illegal aliens. And the illegal labor has moved out of the fields and into mainstream jobs Americans once did. I hope people can see the similarities to our modern institutional corruption of our government by corrupt businesses. We all witnessed the show raids on businesses and illegals earlier this year when Bush in an unholy alliance with Senate Democrats were pushing his amnesty / guest worker scheme. They still arrest and deport when it serves their propoganda purposes. Funny how the raids disappeared after the US House killed their amnesty plans. Smells like institutional corruption to me.

Hey dude, I'm a so-called 'liberal' and I'm with you on this one. Arrest them, round them up, send them home, don't let them come back. Keep them out in the first place. Illegal immigration on this scale is disastrous for poor working Americans. They have no right to be there, and it pisses me off to no end when they protest in the streets alleging that they DO have the right to be in the U.S. Nope! Go home.