Mexico

Mexico in the United States

Operation Wetback in relation to Crime and Race

Operation Wetback is included in the Encyclopedia of Race and Crime (1), beginning with: Operation Wetback began in 1954 as an effort to remove undocumented and illegal Mexican sharecropper workers from the United States. Vetted by President Dwight Eisenhower and drafted by Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Operation Wetback arose as a result of an angry citizenry. The public had become disgruntled over the widespread corruption of employers of sharecroppers and growers along the Mexican border—the recent influx of illegal workers had made the border patrol a risible arm of law enforcement. Although Operation Wetback was deemed a success, the numbers of successful deportations are often the source of controversy. Some argue the numbers were inflated by the Eisenhower administration, while others suggest that such a contention misses the larger goal and purpose of the legislation (to address the corrupt practices of those who employed illegal workers and deported said workers). This section reviews the historical context, purpose, and impact of Operation Wetback.

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna in the U.S. Legal History

Summary

The Mexican general and president whose defeat at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836 permitted Texas to gain its independence.

Resources

Notes and References

Entry about Operation Wetback in the Encyclopedia of Race and Crime

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One response to “Mexico”

International

December 25, 2017

Mexico has been undergoing rapid economic growth since NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) went into effect in 1994. But as Becker explains, the very recent economic reforms in education, energy, and telecommunications, and also in the political structure of the country, could do a lot to accelerate Mexico’s transition from a developing to a developed country. Mexico has a large population (almost 120 million) and Mexicans are famously hard working (in California if you want to say that a person works too hard you say he works like a Mexican). It has been handicapped, however, by, among other things, a very poor education system, a state monopoly of oil production, and monopolistic conditions in telecommunications, and all these are drags on growth that the new reforms aim to eliminate. (There also tax and banking reforms, though these don’t seem to be amounting to much.)

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