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The blueprint of Trump’s deportation plan: A questionable approach by Eisenhower
Former President Donald Trump has sought to make immigration a defining issue in the 2024 presidential race, pledging to oversee mass deportations if voters return him to the White House.
“The Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” he said at the Republican National Convention this past July, as his crowd of supporters held signs bearing the phrase “mass deportation now!”
It’s a pledge Trump has made frequently this campaign cycle, including at his rallies, in a recent conversation with billionaire Elon Musk, and in the official Republican Party platform. But it is not just during this election that Trump has promised to conduct the largest deportation operation in American history. He has said it since at least 2015, when he was first running for commander in chief. He brought it up in the fourth Republican primary debate, and earlier that year, he raised the subject of mass deportation in an interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.
In the last nine years, one thing has frequently come up when Trump mentions removing en masse the migrants who have crossed the border illegally: the name of another former president.
“You look back in the 1950s, you look back at the Eisenhower administration, take a look at what they did, and it worked,” Trump told Pelley in 2015.
What the U.S. government did under Dwight D. Eisenhower was a massive military-style sweep. U.S. Border Patrol agents conducted raids to round up Mexican laborers from farms and ranches, then transported them deported deep into Mexico. Historians say the program tore families apart, violated civil rights — and at times, even turned deadly.
Moreover, those who have studied the Eisenhower administration’s approach say this short-term show-of-force did not stop the problem.
“I would describe [it] as a very cruel operation of deportation,” said immigration historian Mae Ngai, whose book “Impossible Subjects” examines how illegal migration became a central issue of U.S. immigration policy. “But also, it was a kind of political theater. It did not solve the issue of undocumented migration.”
The blueprint for Trump’s idea: “Operation Wetback”
Following World War II, immigration into the United States was fairly low. The U.S. government imposed strict immigration quotas that limited the number of people allowed to enter the country. The controversy over immigration arose in the early 1950s, around the Bracero program, a guest worker program for agricultural laborers from Mexico.
According to Ngai, the American growers who were hiring these Mexican laborers preferred undocumented workers because they had fewer regulations governing their treatment. This embarrassed the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Ngai said, because they wanted the farmers to only take the legally contracted Braceros.
Although the terms have since become ethnic slurs, in the 1950s, most everyone involved in immigration policy on both sides of the border referred to people who crossed the river illegally from Mexico as “wetbacks” or “mojados.” In 1953, CBS’s Edward R. Murrow reported on the situation at the border using that term.
“Every 30 seconds, a Mexican wetback enters this country illegally,” Murrow detailed. “The number is increasing. Some days as many as 5,000 are caught and sent back in a single day.”
To deal with the issue of illegal entries from Mexico, Eisenhower assigned his Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, Lieutenant General Joseph Swing, Eisenhower’s friend and former West Point classmate. Swing concocted a military-style plan to round up and mass deport those laborers who crossed the border outside of the Bracero program. The plan became known as “Operation Wetback.”
Although the U.S. had steadily increased deportations of Mexican laborers, the largest effort commenced in June 1954, when U.S. Border Patrol head Harlon Carter promised “the biggest drive against illegal aliens in history,” according to a contemporaneous report by the Los Angeles Times.
Over the next year, hundreds of Border Patrol agents apprehended and deported anyone suspected of being in the United States illegally. They flew airplanes over the Rio Grande Valley to see where people were working and would check to see if there was a farm that was illegally contracting workers. While the operation included some raids in cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, Ngai said, the primary focus was laborers near the Mexican border.
“These people were just rounded up, put on trucks and buses, driven over the border, dumped on the other side, sometimes in the desert,” Ngai said.
Ngai said about a quarter of the people deported through “Operation Wetback” were put on ships and taken across the Gulf of Mexico to Veracruz in the Yucatan Peninsula.
“There was a big exposé that these ships were barely converted freighters that were very old and dirty,” Ngai said. “One person in Congress called them ‘hell ships.'”
According to Ngai, migrants were sometimes left in the scorching Mexican desert, with temperatures soaring over 100 degrees. “In one case, 88 people died from sun stroke, and more would have died had the Mexican Red Cross not come to their rescue,” Ngai said.
“Operation Wetback,” Ngai said, was largely intended to show force to two audiences: Americans living near the border who had complained about the migration problem, and the growers, in an effort to make them obey the federal hiring program. It was not intended to score political points nationally.
“It was not a campaign issue,” Ngai said. “Most Americans didn’t think about farm workers at the border, legal or not.”
The mass deportation operation lasted about a year. The program had become expensive to maintain, and American agriculture growers had begun to comply with the Bracero program to hire Mexican workers legally, leading them to use fewer undocumented laborers.
At the time, the Eisenhower administration said it carried out more than one million “returns,” but historians believe many people were deported more than once and that the actual number of people is significantly less. Two historians told 60 Minutes that some American citizens were mistakenly deported in the roundups.
How Trump’s plan today connects
Former President Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance once believed the Republican Party was being “tone deaf” to suggest millions of undocumented people could be deported. While a law student at Yale, he wrote a since-deleted blog post for the Center for World Conflict and Peace that criticized the Republican Party’s immigration positions.
“Think about it: we conservatives (rightly) mistrust the government to efficiently administer business loans and regulate our food supply, yet we allegedly believe that it can deport millions of unregistered aliens,” Vance wrote in 2012. “The notion fails to pass the laugh test.”
Today, Vance supports Trump’s pledge of mass deportation, telling the New York Times in an interview that meaningful border enforcement requires both a physical deterrent and a willingness to deport people.
“I think it’s certainly reasonable to deport around a million people per year,” he told the Times.
To see how Trump’s plan today connects to that of the Eisenhower administration, 60 Minutes correspondent Cecilia Vega spoke with Tom Homan, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first year and a half of the Trump administration. Homan led ICE when thousands of migrant children were separated from their parents at the border, and Trump has counted Homan among those who will join him if he wins a second term.
Vega noted to Homan that Trump often invokes Eisenhower’s name, referencing a deportation program in which civil rights were violated, migrants were deported in dangerous conditions, and some people died. Vega suggested this history might give people pause.
“That doesn’t mean people are going to die,” Homan said. “That doesn’t mean civil rights are going to be violated. President Trump doesn’t mean that.”
Although he said he did not know what the Eisenhower administration’s plan entailed, Homan said Trump’s plan would not follow it in all aspects.
“He could say he’s got the Eisenhower plan, because the Eisenhower plan was a massive deportation, but it doesn’t mean all the negative things that happened are going to happen under his leadership,” Homan said.
But mass deporting undocumented migrants would be much more complicated now than it was in the 1950s.
“They’re not Mexican workers,” Ngai said. “The large numbers of people who are crossing the border are asylum seekers. They’re people who are fleeing civil war, civil strife, gang violence.”
Today’s migrants live in cities throughout the country, not just near the border, and many have been in the country for years, often establishing families and work histories. A study by the American Immigration Council found that mass deportation could result in the removal of millions of construction, hospitality, and agriculture workers, which would reduce the GDP by $1.7 trillion.
To see how ICE conducts targeted apprehensions today, 60 Minutes embedded with a group of ICE agents in Silver Springs, Maryland. There, the agents were locating and arresting undocumented immigrants identified by ICE as a threat to public safety, including those with criminal histories such as assault, robbery, drug and gun convictions.
60 Minutes watched as it took a team of more than a dozen officers seven hours to arrest six people, not including the many hours spent searching for them.
Matt Elliston, the director of ICE’s Baltimore field office, said that deporting a mass number of undocumented migrants — such as the one million number Vance suggested — would be logistically infeasible.
“I could say here in Maryland, we would never be able to resource or find that amount of detention, which would be our biggest challenge,” Elliston said. “And just the amount of money that that would cost in order to detain everybody, it’d be, you know, at the Department of Defense level of financing.”
No matter how many people an administration were to deport, historian Ngai said, history suggests mass deportation is no panacea.
“You can try to have a big show, but ultimately you don’t solve the problem,” Ngai said. “You hurt some people, and then people don’t look anymore, and the problem doesn’t go away.”
The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Famer and edited by Scott Rosann.
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Axe taken from crime scene after Montana camper’s brutal murder, authorities say, as killer remains at large
Two weeks after a camper in Montana was savagely killed in his tent, authorities say they are looking for a large axe and other items that were likely taken from the crime scene.
Dustin Kjersem, 35, was found dead in his tent earlier this month by a friend who reported Kjersem appeared to have been killed by a bear — but officials soon discovered the camper was actually the victim of a brutal murder.
In a social media post, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said it’s continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the homicide and asked the public to be on the lookout for a large axe and several items that are “believed to have been removed from the scene of the crime.”
Specifically, authorities said they were looking for a blue and silver Estwing camp axe, likely with a 26″ handle, as well as a Remington 11-87 12ga shotgun and Ruger Blackhawk .44mag revolver. The sheriff’s office said it was also looking for an orange Tundra 45 cooler made by YETI.
“If you see these items, don’t touch them and immediately report them,” the office said in the post, which included images of the axe and cooler.
“We appreciate the information that has been provided by the community and multiple leads are being investigated,” the office added.
Earlier this month, a friend discovered Kjersem’s body in a tent at a makeshift campsite along Moose Creek Road and called 911, telling responders the death appeared to have been caused by a bear attack, the sheriff’s office previously said.
But a state wildlife official found no signs of bear activity, and investigators said they soon found evidence of a “vicious attack.” An autopsy later showed Kjersem sustained “multiple chop wounds,” including to his skull.
“He was brutally killed at his campsite and we need your help,” Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer said previously, adding that his detectives were working “all hours of day and night to find his killer.”
Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office
No suspects have been identified, and Springer said the remote area of the crime scene, where there is no cellphone service, was making the investigation more difficult than most cases.
“People have asked me if there’s a threat to this community and the answer is we don’t know. We don’t have enough information to know at this time,” he said.
Kjersem’s sister Jillian Price said her brother was a skilled tradesman and a doting father.
“I don’t understand why the world’s just not stopping and looking for who did this to him,” Price told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. “Please, I mean he deserves that. I need that.”
A GoFundMe set up for Kjersem’s children has raised more than $24,000.
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Gérard Depardieu skipping hearing on alleged sex assaults of 2 women, lawyer says, citing health reasons
Paris — French actor Gérard Depardieu, who is facing trial for the alleged sexual assaults of two women on a film set in 2021, won’t appear before a criminal court in Paris on Monday due to health reasons, his lawyer said.
Depardieu, who previously has denied any wrongdoing, is accused of using “violence, coercion, surprise or threat” in the alleged assault, which prosecutors said took place on the set of “Les Volets verts” (“The Green Shutters”).
Lawyer Jérémie Assous said doctors say the actor’s health doesn’t enable him to appear for the opening of the trial on Monday.
Alessandro Bianchi / REUTERS
Depardieu “is deeply affected and unfortunately his doctors don’t allow him to appear at the hearing,” Assous told France Info radio.
Assous said he will ask the court for the postponement of the trial because his client “wishes to come, wants to express himself.”
Prosecutors say that in both cases, victims reported that the 75-year-old actor trapped them between his legs and groped their buttocks, genitals, chest and breasts over their clothes.
The trial was scheduled as France continues to reckon with sexual violence in the wake of the #MeToo movement that struggled to find traction, especially in the cinema industry.
One woman’s allegations
One of the victims has been identified as a 53-year-old production designer. The Associated Press doesn’t generally identify victims of sexual assault without their consent. Her lawyer did not respond to an AP’s email on that matter.
According to Paris prosecutors, the woman told investigators that she’d first heard sexual remarks from Depardieu and then one day, as she walked past him, he had “grabbed her, pulled her toward him, blocked her with his legs, and groped her waist, hips and chest, accompanying his gestures with obscene remarks.”
Three people witnessed it, prosecutors said, confirming that the woman made an attempt to break away from Depardieu’s grip and that she seemed “shocked.” A psychiatrist’s examination resulted in her being granted a seven-day leave.
After the incident, it was arranged for Depardieu to apologize. But in a TV interview aired Saturday, the woman said the actor was furious and blamed her for causing trouble. Prosecutors said witnesses confirmed that what Depardieu had said did not constitute an apology.
In the interview with French online news site Mediapart, the production designer – who spoke on camera but only gave her first name – said the alleged assault had taken a toll on her personal and professional life for at least 1 1/2 years. She said she could not sleep well, suffered anxiety attacks and lost weight.
The woman, according to prosecutors, said it had taken her a while to file a complaint but she decided to do so after hearing on television that there had never been an incident during the shoot.
Another woman’s allegations
The month before the alleged assault, another woman also working on the film’s set had complained about Depardieu, Paris prosecutors said.
A director’s assistant told investigators Depardieu had touched her buttocks on several occasions. She had expressed her disapproval and in return, Depardieu, she said, had been insulting toward her. She was also given a six-day leave by a psychiatrist.
Assous, Depardieu’s lawyer, told the AP in an email Saturday that “the witnesses and evidence (Depardieu) will produce will demonstrate that he is the target of false accusations.”
Despite the allegations against Depardieu, many have come out in his support, including French President Emmanuel Macron.
Late last year, 56 French performers, writers and producers published an essay defending the film star, saying that when “Gérard Depardieu is targeted this way, it is the art (of cinema) that is being attacked.
Prior allegations
Their call came just weeks after national broadcaster France 2 put out a documentary outlining accusations of sexual misconduct by 16 women against Depardieu and showed the actor making obscene remarks and gestures during a 2018 trip to North Korea.
In the footage, Depardieu can be seen making groaning sounds and sexual comments in front of women, including a girl about 10 years old who is horseback riding. He can also be seen posing for a photo, saying he was “touching the bottom” of a North Korean interpreter by his side.
He was charged in 2021 with rape and sexual assault after authorities revived a 2018 investigation that was initially dropped, following allegations from actor Charlotte Arnould.
In an open letter published in the conservative-leaning newspaper Le Figaro, Depardieu said last year: “I have never, ever abused a woman.”
The actor was long seen as a national icon in France. He has been a global ambassador for French film and enjoyed international fame with several roles in Hollywood.
Earlier this year, actor Judith Godrèche called on France’s film industry to “face the truth” on sexual violence and physical abuse during the Cesar Awards ceremony, France’s version of the Oscars.
Godrèche had previously alleged two prominent filmmakers sexually abused her when she was a teen, sending new shockwaves through the industry.
More recently, the ongoing trial of 50 men accused of raping a woman who had been previously drugged and rendered unconscious by her husband shook the country. Protests spread nationwide last weekend in support of the victim, a mother and grandmother in her early 70s, who has become a hero to many victims of sexual violence for insisting that her trial be open to the public.
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McDonald’s says Quarter Pounders will be sold again after beef patties ruled out as E. coli source
Los Angeles — McDonald’s announced Sunday that Quarter Pounders will again be on its menu at hundreds of its restaurants after testing ruled out beef patties as the source of the outbreak of E. coli poisoning tied to the popular burgers that killed one person and sickened at least 75 others across 13 states.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to believe that slivered onions from a single supplier are the likely source of contamination, McDonald’s said in a statement. It said it will resume selling the Quarter Pounder at affected restaurants — without slivered onions – in the coming week.
As of Friday, the outbreak had expanded to at least 75 people sick in 13 states, federal health officials said. A total of 22 people had been hospitalized, and two developed a dangerous kidney disease complication, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. One person died in Colorado.
Early information analyzed by the FDA showed that uncooked slivered onions used on the burgers “are a likely source of contamination,” the agency said. McDonald’s has confirmed that Taylor Farms, a California-based produce company, was the supplier of the fresh onions used in the restaurants involved in the outbreak and that they had come from a facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
McDonald’s pulled the Quarter Pounder burger from menus in several states – mostly in the Midwest and Mountain states – when the outbreak was announced Tuesday. McDonald’s said Friday that slivered onions from the Colorado Springs facility were distributed to approximately 900 of its restaurants, including some in transportation hubs like airports.
The company said it removed slivered onions sourced from that facility from its supply chain on Tuesday. McDonald’s said it has decided to stop sourcing onions from Taylor Farms’ Colorado Springs facility “indefinitely.”
The 900 McDonald’s restaurants that normally received slivered onions from Taylor Farms’ Colorado Springs facility will resume sales of Quarter Pounders without slivered onions, McDonald’s said.
Testing by the Colorado Department of Agriculture ruled out beef patties as the source of the outbreak, McDonald’s said.
The department of agriculture received multiple lots of fresh and frozen beef patties collected from various Colorado McDonald’s locations associated with the E. coli investigation. All samples were found to be negative for E. coli, the department said.
Taylor Farms said Friday that it had preemptively recalled yellow onions sent to its customers from its Colorado facility and continues to work with the CDC and the FDA as they investigate.
While it remains unclear if the recalled onions were the source of the outbreak, several other fast-food restaurants – including Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC and Burger King – pulled onions from some menus in certain areas this week.
Colorado had the most illnesses reported as of Friday, with 26 cases. At least 13 people were sickened in Montana, 11 in Nebraska, 5 each in New Mexico and Utah, 4 each in Missouri and Wyoming, two in Michigan and one each in Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Wisconsin and Washington, the CDC reported.
McDonald’s said Friday it didn’t pull the Quarter Pounder from any additional restaurants and noted that some cases in states outside the original region were tied to travel.
The CDC said some people who got sick reported traveling to other states before their symptoms started. At least three people said they ate at McDonald’s during their travel. Illnesses were reported between Sept. 27 and Oct. 11.
The outbreak involves infections with E. coli 0157:H7, a type of bacteria that produces a dangerous toxin. It causes about 74,000 infections in the U.S. annually, leading to more than 2,000 hospitalizations and 61 deaths each year, according to CDC.
Symptoms of E. coli poisoning can occur quickly, within a day or two of eating contaminated food. They typically include fever, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea and signs of dehydration – little or no peeing, increased thirst and dizziness. The infection is especially dangerous for children younger than 5 and people who are elderly, pregnant or who have weakened immune systems.
