Illegal Immigrants - Trump 47
""... look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk — not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating — they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame." Trump said at the Presidential debate 10 September 2024.
In a post on X, vice presidential candidate JD Vance said Springfield, Ohio, residents claim Haitian immigrants have abducted and eaten their pets. Officials in Springfield have said there's no evidence of the claim. Vance defended the baseless claims, maintaining they were not entirely unfounded and had helped call attention to the area's social problems otherwise ignored by the news media.
“I think that what we’ve said, and what President Trump has said, is when you’ve got 25 million illegal aliens in this county, you’ve gotta deport a lot of people or you don’t have a border anymore. It’s just that simple,” JD Vance said 22 Octobe 2024. “We gotta focus on the most hardened criminals. We’ve got 425,000 violent criminal illegal aliens in this country right now. We gotta get those people out of our country and we’ve gotta do it as quickly as humanly possible.” According to latest available data from the Pew Research Center, the actual number of undocumented immigrants living in the US in 2022 was about 11 million. An additional 2.3 million removable immigrants were released into the United States between January 2023 and April 2024 and would also be targeted in any mass deportation operation.
A cornerstone of former Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign was his promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in United States history. The details of how he would carry out the plan have been unclear. But at rallies, Trump said he will use an 18th-century law to enforce mass deportations. The deportation operation will begin in Aurora, Colorado, and will be called “Operation Aurora”, Trump said at an October 11 rally in Reno, Nevada, adding that immigrants are “trying to conquer us”.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican, said in a statement on Facebook, “Concerns about Venezuelan gang activity have been grossly exaggerated.” Only a handful of incidents related to the Tren de Aragua gang have been reported in the city of 400,000, he added. “Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city — not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said.
At a campaign rally in Aurora, Trump said he’d invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite gang members’ removal and to “target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil”. Trump was referring to a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, which he said has taken over “multiple apartment complexes” in Aurora. Claims that a Venezuelan gang had taken over Aurora started in August 2024, when a video of a group of Spanish-speaking armed men walking in a city apartment complex went viral. However, local officials have pushed back, saying that concerns about Venezuelan gangs in Aurora are “grossly exaggerated”. Aurora police say they’ve arrested Tren de Aragua gang members, but they have not said they had taken over apartment complexes.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is part of a larger set of four laws – the Alien and Sedition Acts – that the United States passed as it feared an impending war with France. The laws increased citizenship requirements, criminalised statements critical of the government and gave the president additional powers to deport noncitizens. Three of the laws were repealed or expired. The Alien Enemies Act is the only one still in place.
The law lets the president detain and deport people from a “hostile nation or government” without a hearing when the US is either at war with that foreign country or the foreign country has “perpetrated, attempted, or threatened” an invasion or raid legally called a “predatory incursion” against the US.
“Although the law was enacted to prevent foreign espionage and sabotage in wartime, it can be – and has been – wielded against immigrants who have done nothing wrong” and who are legally in the US, Katherine Yon Ebright, an expert on constitutional war powers at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank at New York University School of Law, wrote in an October 9 report for the Brennan Center for Justice.
US presidents have invoked the law three times, only during wartime:
- The War of 1812: Former President James Madison invoked the act against British people who were required to report information including their age, the length of time they’d lived in the US and whether they’d applied for citizenship.
- World War I: Former President Woodrow Wilson invoked the act against people from Germany and its allies, such as Austria-Hungary.
- World War II: Former President Franklin Roosevelt invoked the act “to detain allegedly potentially dangerous enemy aliens”, the National Archives said. Mainly this included German, Italian and Japanese people. The act was used to place noncitizens from those countries in internment camps. The act was not used to detain US citizens of Japanese descent. An executive order was used for that.
Trump has mentioned enforcing the 1798 law against Mexican drug cartels and Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang. Legal experts said Trump does not have the authority to invoke the Alien Enemies Act against gang members or as a tool for mass deportations. To invoke the act, an invasion must be perpetrated or threatened by a foreign government. The US is not currently at war with any foreign government. The law also can’t be used broadly for people from every country.
Trump and his allies have characterised the rise in illegal immigration under President Joe Biden as an invasion. Legal and immigration experts have disagreed with the characterisation. The illegal migration or drug smuggling at the southern border is not an invasion, Ilya Somin, a George Mason University constitutional law professor wrote in an October 13 report for online magazine Reason.
Invoking the act “as a turbocharged deportation authority … is at odds with centuries of legislative, presidential, and judicial practice, all of which confirm that the Alien Enemies Act is a wartime authority”, Ebright said in her report. “Invoking it in peacetime to bypass conventional immigration law would be a staggering abuse.”
Legal experts have said that an attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act for mass deportations would likely be challenged in court. However, it’s unclear whether the courts would issue a ruling. A court last heard a case regarding the Alien Enemies Act after World War II. Former President Harry Truman had continued Roosevelt’s invocation of the act for years after the war’s end. At the time, the court ruled that whether a war ended and whether wartime authorities had expired were “political questions” and therefore not up to courts to decide. Similarly, some courts have previously said that the definition of an invasion is also a political question.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sent President-elect Donald Trump a fiery letter in response to his tariff threats where she warned Mexico would retaliate with its own tariffs but signaled she would like the two countries to work together. The letter dated November 26 was sent one day after Trump threatened in a social media post to sign an executive order on his first day in office to impose 25 percent tariffs on all products from Mexico. The president-elect claimed the tariffs would remain in place until Mexico took steps to stop illegal border crossings and drugs such as fentanyl from entering the U.S.
Sheinbaum outlined how Mexico is addressing migration and touted U.S. data to emphasize the claim Trump used to make his tariff threat was wrong. 'You may not be aware that Mexico has developed a comprehensive policy to assist migrants from different parts of the world who cross our territory en route to the southern border of the United States,' Sheinbaum wrote, according to a translation of her letter.
She pointed out that the steps Mexico has taken has resulted in a 75 percent decrease in encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border from December 2023 to November 2024, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. She also stated that half of those who arrive do so through a scheduled appointment with the U.S. CBP One program.
'For these reasons, migrant caravans no longer arrive at the border,' Sheinbaum wrote.
Sheinbaum argued the U.S. and Mexico must still worth together to 'create a new labor mobility model that is necessary for your country, as well as address the root causes that compel families to leave their homes out of necessity.' 'If even a small percentage of what the United States allocates to war were instead dedicated to building peace and fostering development, it would address the underlying causes of human mobility,' Sheinbaum went on.
Sheinbaum also addressed the fentanyl crisis wreaking havoc in the U.S. as drugs are brought across the border from Mexico. She said her country's actions were for humanitarian reasons. 'Mexico has consistently expressed its willingness to help prevent the fentanyl epidemic in the United States from continuing. This is, after all, a public health and consumption problem within your society,' she wrote. Sheinbaum claimed Mexican armed forces and prosecutors have seized drugs, more than 10,000 firearms and detained more than 15,600 people for violence related to drug trafficking.
She pointed out the Mexican Congress is working to make a constitutional reform that would classify the production, distribution, and commercialization of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs as a serious crime without bail. Sheinbaum said the chemicals used to produce the drugs are illegally entering Mexico, Canada and the U.S. from Asia and argued there is an 'urgent need' for international collaboration.
That is when Sheinbaum turned the issue back on the U.S. as she highlighted another component of the issue which is the illegal trafficking of firearms from the U.S. into Mexico. 'Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country,' she wrote. 'We do not produce these weapons, nor do we consume synthetic drugs,' she continued. 'Tragically, it is in our country that lives are lost to the violence resulting from meeting the drug demand in yours,' she said.
Sheinbaum said the issues of migration and drug consumption in the U.S. cannot be addressed through treats or tariffs. She said instead there is a need for cooperation and mutual understanding. 'For every tariff, there will be a response in kind, until we put at risk our shared enterprises. Yes shared,' she warned. 'For instance, among Mexico’s main exporters to the United States are General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford Motor Company, which arrived in Mexico 80 years ago. Why impose a tariff that would jeopardize them?' she explained.
Trump has previously promised mass deportations. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to deport all immigrants living in the US illegally. However, he failed to do this. On 22 June 2019 Trump said he is delaying a nationwide sweep to deport undocumented immigrants in the US as he seeks compromise with Democratic leaders on immigration issues. He said in a tweet he would delay for two weeks to give legislators time to discuss border solutions.
When Trump entered office, an estimated 11 million people were illegally in the country, according to data from Pew Research. From fiscal years 2017 to 2020, the Department of Homeland Security recorded 2 million deportations. (Fiscal year 2017 included about four months of former President Barack Obama’s administration.) By comparison, Obama carried out 3.2 million and 2.1 million deportations during each of his terms respectively.
The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, reported in June 2024 that the Biden administration has carried out 4.4 million deportations, “more than any single presidential term since the George W Bush administration (5 million in its second term)”. Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown University constitutional law professor, wrote in his newsletter on October 14 that there are already immigration laws that allow for deportations. But a main challenge against carrying out a mass deportation operation is the lack of resources required to find, detain and deport a large number of people.
On 12 October 2024 told a rally “Now America is known all throughout the world as occupied America”, citing a supposed “invasion” of migrants. Trump also laid out a stark vision for his first days in office, if re-elected, with policy proposals hinged on mass deportation. “To everyone here in Colorado and all across our nation, I make this pledge and vow to you: November 5, 2024, will be liberation day in America,” he said, with a reference to election day.
Trump named former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Tom Homan as his “border czar” to lead biggest mass deportation in US history. Homan had promised “a historic deportation operation” should a hawkish administration return to power. “I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump wrote, adding that Homan will be in charge of “all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin”. Homan suggested at a July 2024 conference in Washington, DC, that he would be willing to “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen”. Homan was asked if there was a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families. He replied: “Of course there is. Families can be deported together.”
Trump then selected Stephen Miller, a longtime advisor who helped shape some of Trump’s most drastic first-term immigration policies, such as family separation, as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller, 39, is a hardline, anti-immigration Trump adviser who helped craft some of the former president’s most high-profile policies during his first term, such as the separation of migrant families. He also frequently uses extreme rhetoric to attack migrants, telling a Trump campaign rally in New York last month that “America is for Americans and Americans only”.
In 1955, Mexican immigrants had been caught in the snare of Operation Wetback, the biggest mass deportation of undocumented workers in United States history. As many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower-era campaign with a racist name, which was designed to root out undocumented Mexicans from American society.
Trump's plans to massively deport millions of undocumented immigrants will hae significant cost and impact on the economy. The total tab could end up costing close to a trillion dollars over 10 years, and the plans could lead to severe labour shortages and troubles with food supply. While some plans have envisioned a one-time, massive operation designed to round up, detain, and deport the undocumented population en masse, others have envisioned starting from a baseline of one million deportations per year. Given that in the modern immigration enforcement era the United States has never deported more than half a million immigrants per year. To put the scale of detaining over 13 million undocumented immigrants into context, the entire U.S. prison and jail population in 2022, comprising every person held in local, county, state, and federal prisons and jails, was 1.9 million people.
Due to the loss of workers across U.S. industries, mass deportation would reduce the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by 4.2 to 6.8 percent. It would also result in significant reduction in tax revenues for the U.S. government. In 2022 alone, undocumented immigrant households paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes. Mass deportations would cause significant labor shocks across multiple key industries, with especially acute impacts on construction, agriculture, and the hospitality sector. Nearly 14 percent of people employed in the construction industry are undocumented.
To carry out over 13 million arrests in a short period of time would require somewhere between 220,000 and 409,000 new government employees and law enforcement officers, which would be nearly impossible given current hiring challenges across law enforcement agencies. Even carrying out one million at-large arrests per year would require ICE to hire over 30,000 new law enforcement agents and staff, instantly making it the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government.
Illegal Immigrants
Sparked in part by the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the increased governmental focus on national security stimulated a national discussion on immigration reform. Indeed, both the US government and the public have increasingly linked immigration law with national security.
Legal immigration (the admission of foreign-born persons for lawful permanent residence) grew substantially during the 1990s. During the 1988-1990 period, legal migration averaged 637,000 yearly (excluding persons legalizing under the provisions of IRCA), and by the 1992-1994 period, it averaged 830,000. Much of this increase was because of the Immigration Act of 1990, which began to take effect in 1992. That law more than doubled the number of visas available to persons who qualify for employment-based immigration. As of October 1996, the INS estimated the number of aliens residing illegally in the United States at 5 million, with a net annual inflow of 275,000 during the 1992-1996 period. By one estimate, 85 percent of immigrants in the US lived in mixed-status families.
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said during a CNN interview on 19 April 2009 that ".... when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil." Some opponents of immigration law enforcement claim that "Being an "illegal immigrant" is not a crime. Violations of immigration laws are civil, not criminal offenses.... other examples of civil offenses.... include paying for damages in a car accident, going to court for a property dispute, or settling a disagreement about someone's will. These are not criminal offenses, and neither are immigration violations. What is the punishment for most civil offenses? A fine. What is the punishment for immigrating to the United States without documentation, which is also a civil offense? Arrest, detention, and deportation.... By making a conscious choice not to say "illegal immigrants" and instead to say "undocumented immigrants," you can help to educate your friends, family, and community about how violating immigration laws is not a criminal offense." This is not exactly correct.
A civil offense is an infraction of a law that is not a crime. This may be something like a routine traffic offense such as speeding. The only penalty for a civil offense is a fine. A crime is a violation of the law that is punishable by a fine or a jail sentence. A misdemeanor is punishable by up to 12 months in jail. Felonies are punishable by one or more years in prison.
It is an undisputable fact that it is a violation of the criminal code to enter the country illegally. 8 U.S.C. 1325(a), which has been in effect for decades and codified in its current form since 1991, is unambiguous that doing so is a crime. Federal law provides that any alien who 1) enters or attempts to enter the U.S. at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, 2) eludes examination by immigration officers, or 3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the U.S. by a willfully false or misleading representation is guilty of improper entry by an alien. A first offense under 8 U.S.C. 1325(a) is a Class B misdemeanor. For the first commission of the offense, the person is fined, imprisoned up to six months, or both, and for a subsequent offense, is fined, imprisoned up to 2 years, or both (8 U.S.C. § 1325). In the case of a defendant with repeated prior instances of deportation without criminal conviction, a sentence at or near the maximum of the applicable guideline range may be warranted.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the primary authority for enforcing immigration laws. ICE was created in March 2003 as an investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE was the result of combining the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Customs Service. The federal immigration service has an estimated 2000 immigration investigators. With approximately 950,000 documented and 500,000 undocumented immigrants entering the United States annually, many claim the federal government lacks the manpower to enforce immigration law. Consequently, bills introduced in Congress seek to utilize the estimated 678,000 state and local police officers for immigration enforcement.
In 2005, in the towns of New Ipswich and Hudson, New Hampshire, local police arrested eight suspected undocumented immigrants on charges of criminal trespass when they failed to provide proper identification. On August 12, 2005, however, a state judge dismissed these charges, stating that they represented an unconstitutional attempt to regulate the enforcement of immigration violations. The judge reasoned that the police action violated the supremacy clause because the federal regulation was "so pervasive" that it left no room for supplementation by the states. But others argue that arresting aliens who have violated either criminal provisions of the INA or civil provisions that render an alien deportable is within the inherent authority of the states, and that this inherent arrest authority has been possessed and exercised by state and local police since the earliest days of federal immigration law.
Congress has expressly authorized state and local police to arrest for violations of certain criminal violations of the Immigration andNationality Act (INA). Specifically, they canmake arrests for the federal immigration crimes of smuggling, transporting, or harboring illegal immigrants (§ 274 of the INA) and illegal reentry after a final order of removal (§ 276 of the INA). In the AEDPA of 1996 Congress authorized state and local law enforcement to arrest and detain an individual who is illegally present in the United States and has been previously convicted of a felony and deported or left the United States after such conviction (§ 8U.S.C. § 1252c).
In 1996, when the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act added Section 287(g) to the Immigration and Nationality Act, local police, upon entry into a memorandum of agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), were granted the authority to enforce federal immigration laws. Pursuant to Section 287(g) agreements, police who meet the requisite federal training standards are authorized to enforce federal immigration law under the supervision of DHS. Notwithstanding the benefits derived from Section 287(g), only a fraction of a percentage of police and sheriffs' departments has opted to participate. If local police are perceived as immigration enforcement officers, immigrants - both documented and undocumented - will avoid contact with police.
Most Police agencies check the status of individuals arrested and detained for a criminal law offense and inform ICE when they encounter non-citizens. The more serious the violation of criminal law, the more likely agencies were to contact ICE regarding criminal detainees in violation of immigration law. Thus, for instance, only slightly more than 20 percent of agencies check immigration status of traffic violators, whereas over 80 percent check immigration status of those arrested for a violent crime.
On 09 June 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower instituted "Operation Wetback," a controversial mass deportation using a racial slur, in which the government rounds up more than 1 million people. Blaming illegal immigrants for low wages, the raids start in California and Arizona, and, according to a publication in the U.S. House of Representatives archives, disrupt agriculture. Funding ran out after a few months, bringing the operation to an end.
Operation Wetback was a U.S. government initiative in the 1950s aimed at addressing illegal immigration from Mexico. The operation, conducted under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and managed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), began in 1954. Purposes were to deport undocumented Mexican immigrants residing in the United States, and to enforce stricter immigration laws and reduce illegal border crossings.
The operation involved mass raids and deportations in areas with significant Mexican populations, particularly in the southwestern US. The INS collaborated with local law enforcement and Border Patrol agents. Mexican nationals were apprehended and deported, often to remote locations far from the U.S.-Mexico border. Reports suggest that hundreds of thousands of individuals were deported. Some estimates claim over 1 million people were affected during the operation's height.
The operation was controversial due to its harsh methods, including racial profiling and poor treatment of deportees. Critics argue it violated the rights of many individuals, including U.S. citizens of Mexican descent who were wrongly targeted. There were concerns over the humanitarian conditions faced by deportees, particularly those abandoned in remote areas.
The term "Operation Wetback" itself is now considered offensive due to its derogatory connotation. It remains a significant event in the history of U.S. immigration policy, often cited in debates about border enforcement and immigrant rights.
During the 1920s, immigration issues took center stage along the border as the US Government attempted to regulate the flow of Mexican immigrants into the country. Writer Timothy J. Dunn points out that “it was characterized by the application of what [James D.] Cockcroft has termed the ‘revolving door’ immigration policy of alternating periods of large-scale immigration and massive deportation.” To help regulate this policy, the US Government established the US Border Patrol in 1924. During the 1930s, the revolving door policy continued.
A critical development in border policy enforcement was the establishment of the U.S. Border Patrol within the the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Initially part of the Department of Labor, the INS was transferred to the Department of Justice in 1940, due to national security considerations as World War II approached. This change transformed the agency, leading to more emphasis on law enforcement.
With America’s entry into World War II and the ensuing severe labor shortage that followed, the US Government reached an agreement with the Mexican Government to allow farm workers into the United States on a temporary basis. Called the Bracero Program, the accord brought thousands of impoverished Mexicans across the border. By the early 1950s, however, the Immigration and Naturalization Service grew increasingly alarmed by the massive influx of undocumented Mexican workers, a situation that threatened to undermine the capabilities of the Border Patrol.
In 1954, US Attorney General Herbert Brownell launched Operation WETBACK, a major coordinated effort to round up and expel illegal aliens. As a Sunday edition of the New York Times then explained, “[t]he term ‘wetback’ was originally applied to Mexicans who entered the U.S. farther east by swimming the Rio Grande,” and dates back to the Great Depression.
Over time, “wetback” became a metonym for all unauthorized Mexican migrants, and today there is little doubt of its status as an epithet or slur. For present purposes, the historical record makes clear that, at least as far back as Operation Wetback, the term was used in connection with anti-immigration sentiment. President Eisenhower, for example, affirmed his support of legislation intended to address what was characterized as the “wetback problem.” Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. similarly announced in the lead-up to Operation Wetback that he “would go to California next week to study the ‘wetback’ problem.”31 And most pointedly, General Joseph Swing, upon assuming the post of Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, announced that he would “stop this horde of invaders.”
Under the leadership of retired General Joseph Swing as INS Commissioner, 1954's "Operation Wetback" applied military strategy and tactics to round up and deport Mexican workers. Swing and two other former Army generals established an INS intelligence service and introduced military terminology and strategy into INS planning and execution. As the architect of Operation Wetback, General Swing made good on his promise. The massive scope of the program and lack of procedural safeguards resulted in many American citizens of Mexican descent being swept up in its dragnet and removed to remote areas of Mexico. One of the ships used to transport such persons was the subject of a congressional investigation, during which the vessel was “likened *** to an ‘eighteenth century slave ship’ and a ‘penal hell ship.’” Immigration officials also deployed calculated publicity campaigns meant to drum up fear and scare thousands of Mexican migrants into leaving the United States.
Hoping to reinforce the Border Patrol, AG Brownell turned to the US Army for help. To his dismay, the proposal was rejected. The Army claimed such an operation would “seriously disrupt training programs at a time when the administration’s economy slashes were forcing the service to drastically cut its strength. Army generals also opposed the idea because a division would be needed just to begin to control the influx, while sealing off the border would require even more troops.” General Joseph Swing thought placing US Army soldiers on the border was “a perfectly horrible” idea that would “‘destroy’ relations with Mexico.”
There were also other reasons to reject the plan. In a State Department dispatch from Robert C. Goodwin to Secretary of Labor James Mitchell, Goodwin called attention to a cartoon from Mexico’s largest newspaper. In his book Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954, Juan Ramon Garcia wrote that “the cartoon portrayed a terror-stricken Mexican with his back to the wall and a huge bayonet marked ‘U.S. Troops’ pointed at his chest, with the legend ‘Between the Sword and the Wall.’” Goodwin suggested that “if the Army proposal were to be followed, we (the United States) would get a similar reaction from a rather large group in this country.”
A US Embassy counselor in Mexico wrote that Mexicans believed the US Army would be used in the deportation effort: "The slant of these comments, which are being overheard in typical local cafes, restaurants, and other like places patronized by Mexicans, is that we are imperialistic, war-mongering and ruthless people and that the poor and wretched wetbacks who want to return to the lands which the United States forcibly took from Mexico, will be met by a hail of American bullets."
In the end, the Border Patrol conducted the operation, rounding up and deporting more than 100,000 Mexicans. According to Dunn, Mexicans were not the only ones humiliated by Operation WETBACK. “Mexican Americans were also negatively affected, because the operation graphically reinforced the principle of their having to be prepared at all times to prove their U.S. citizenship or face deportation.” It was perhaps a wise decision on the part of the US Army to avoid participating in Operation WETBACK.
The influence of retired Army generals in senior INS positions reinforced thoughts of militarizing the border. In 1970, General Leonard Chapman was appointed INS Commissioner. Commissioner Chapman was credited with promoting the "illegal alien problem" as a national crisis. INS apprehensions of undocumented immigrants began to approach the levels that had preceded "Operation Wetback." Under Commissioner Chapman, the INS functioned with military-like flexibility of organization and mobility, using a force of agents to work a designated area in concentric, widening circles, driving the "enemy" aliens across the border.
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