During Tuesday night's debate, Donald Trump unveiled the centerpiece of his bid to "Make America Great Again:" Let's do that thing we did on immigration back in the 1950s. Wait, what was that called? Oh, yes—"Operation Wetback."
Here's Trump waxing nostalgic about President Dwight Eisenhower's attempt to forcibly round up undocumented immigrants and then bus them to some random locations in Mexico.
"He moved them just beyond the border, they came back. Moved them again beyond the border, they came back. Didn't like it. Moved 'em waaaay south, they never came back. Dwight Eisenhower. You don't get nicer, you don't get friendlier. They moved 1.5 million people out."
Wow, that sounds like a real winner. Here's the effect it had:
Dozens of the operation's deportees died. The program was initiated by then-Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr., who ordered his officers to shoot "wetbacks" trying to enter America. Ultimately, it wasn't even as successful as Trump claims: Some researchers consider the 1.5 million-deported figure to be highly exaggerated.
As Mother Jones noted, white supremacists were immediately enamored of the idea.
Good to see Trump already making America great again.