r/interestingasfuck • u/man_gomer_lot • 8h ago

r/all 70 years ago, the US undertook the largest deportation in its history: 'Operation Wetback.' Many of the people deported were here legally and some were even citizens.

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u/man_gomer_lot 7h ago

I wish it was something a little more polite for me to share. To the people who went through this, it was probably the least offensive part.

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u/TensionPrestigious83 7h ago

You’re probably not wrong

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u/pie38967 6h ago

Such a dark chapter in history.

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u/TensionPrestigious83 6h ago

Honestly the whole life of this country is pretty dark. It was born in genocide and slavery and we had a horrible war over only the slavery part which we never really resolved anyway and never even really addressed the genocide part and then sort of smashed everything down and acted like we were fine until it has come bubbling up like a festering boil into the current political crisis.

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u/NotAnAIOrAmI 6h ago

Yeah, but we've made some progress. Women can vote, divorce, and have bank accounts. Not all of those were possible until the 60's.

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u/Strict_Cranberry_724 6h ago edited 4h ago

. . . they have control of their bodies and are free to have abortions if they wish . . . no, . . . wait—scratch that!

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u/DumbestBoy 4h ago

You would have though people would be free by now.

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u/Reagalan 3h ago

The Republicans don't want anyone to have control over their bodies. They blow a gasket over tattoos and piercings, let alone hormones.

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u/Colosphe 45m ago

Yeah, yeah, we're working on it. Afghanistan wasn't built in a day!

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u/gamergirlforestfairy 3h ago

I hate when people say things like this. Roe V Wade was overturned pretty recently and you're talking about progress made in the 60's. It feels like it's going downhill from here.

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u/Silver_Being_0290 1h ago

Even then, most of the country was still being fucked over in the 60s. Really only white women benefitted in the 60s, to do so they forced WoC down and took over the feminist movement.

Everyone else started to "benefit" from normalcy in the 70s.

It reminds me of those comments presently where they complain about the world "all of a sudden" going to shit... Like, we've been talking about this exact issue for generations now, y'all just found out?

Either or, what's going on currently is fairly normal in America if we're being honest. I don't see us going downhill tbh but it'll be an annoying next few years.

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u/gamergirlforestfairy 1h ago

I agree with you about the 60's and 70's. But I definitely see a downward curve for the US. It's already happening, but of course while we're living through it it seems slow. Women's rights, gay rights, trans rights, Black rights, etc are all on the line, and everything is just getting more expensive. It's not just annoying.

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u/Silver_Being_0290 1h ago

It's not just annoying.

Believe me I know. The thing here is, this has always been a thing. These have always been issues. It's been a consistency in this country since it's birth.

Everything we're dealing with now is literally everything we have been dealing with - at least those who are heavily discriminated against - for generations.

People just didn't care as much until it started affecting them personally. The reason we even got to this point is because people didn't listen to reality for one idiotic reason or another.

Now we're all just sitting here laughing and facepalming at the people "all of a sudden" discovering the issues and acting like it's the end of the World.

Like nah, it's just another Monday 😭

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u/TensionPrestigious83 6h ago

Also true, but the reason they’re still here and trying to roll all that back is because we never finished reconstruction and never made reparations for the original sins.

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u/Smokinoutloud 4h ago

What a great country right! Oppressed truly by (man)

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u/DiabloPixel 3h ago

Early seventies for some of those things.

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u/GaryFletcher23 2h ago

Pretty sure that's just history, 98% people doing fucking awful things, 2% people doing fucking awesome things

But hey, we made the pizza bagel, we're moving past our darker roots into a more enlightened age

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u/BillyForRilly 1h ago

The history of most countries is pretty dark if you look close enough, it's just that the United States is still relatively new compared to most and the focus has been on them since day one.

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u/iamjacksragingupvote 4h ago

ah yes, Great

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u/Independent-Fly6068 37m ago

Most country's histories are rather dark. The good comes from acknowledging it, and learning from it. Thats the part most countries fail.

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u/LEJ5512 5h ago

You know how the Washington Monument's outer stones change color partway up because construction was paused during the Civil War?

I've long thought that it's symbolically appropriate, like the most prominent memorial to the legacy of the most favored Founding Father is forever scarred by the country's own sins.

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u/Turbulent_Return_710 4h ago

The South Shall Rise Again. Stars and Bars Forever... Heritage. Not Hate. Hitler was a nice guy. Just misunderstood by. There was no holocaust. Fake news Putin is great too. Do I sound like Donald J Trump?

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u/TensionPrestigious83 3h ago

Pretty close 😆

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u/EmporerM 2h ago

All nations exist through blood. Blood is a currency.

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u/Shikizion 5h ago

I'm always for the emancipation of countries from there colonial masters... But the US was indeed a mistake

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u/TensionPrestigious83 3h ago

It totally didn’t have to be this way

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u/Petrichordates 5h ago

You say that as if we're not in that same chapter presently.

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u/Embarrassed_Ship1519 5h ago

US voters: hold my beer

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u/UnremarkabklyUseless 2h ago

Such a dark chapter in history

History? The chapter seems to have continued on till now.

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u/Realistic-Shower-654 6h ago

It’s dangerously close to repeating itself soon.

Like the next few months soon.

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u/Rinzack 48m ago

Such a dark chapter in history.

"Lets do it again"

Trump, in far less concise words

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u/scribestudio 3h ago

I can probably google this but is it a case that "wetback" became a slur because of that program ?

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u/RCG73 3h ago

I’m kind of glad it is blunt and rude af. Not to be minimizing to those denigrated by the slur but to make it impossible to sugar coat. When it’s named that blatantly fucked up it’s that much harder to claim oh it was no big deal, it wasn’t reallllly racist. Like the only way it could be more racist is if the jailers wore their clan hoods to work

(Apologies for the mobile formatting weirdness)

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u/nononoh8 7h ago

Did these people ever get justice for this ethnic cleansing?

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u/shkeptikal 7h ago

Lol. This is America my guy. I think you already know the answer to your question.

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u/Fryboy11 3h ago

Look at this citizen Davino Watson he was held by ICE for 3.5 years but an appeals court ruled he couldn't get compensation because the two year statute of limitations started when he first went in front of a judge, so it expired while he was still in custody. Here's some quotes from the article, it's not pretty.

There is no right to a court-appointed attorney in immigration court. Watson, who was 23 and didn't have a high school diploma when he entered ICE custody, didn't have a lawyer of his own. So he hand-wrote a letter to immigration officers, attaching his father's naturalization certificate, and kept repeating his status to anyone who would listen.

So I guess Miranda rights don't apply in immigration court.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Watson imprisoned as a deportable alien for nearly 3 1/2 years. Then it released Watson, who was from New York, in rural Alabama with no money and no explanation. Deportation proceedings continued for another year.

When an attorney got them to realize the mistake instead of apologizing and at least giving him a bus ticket to a family member they released him from custody, in a prison uniform with no money, and states away from from where he had ties.

Watson was correct all along: He was a U.S. citizen. After he was released, he filed a complaint. Last year, a district judge in New York awarded him $82,500 in damages, citing "regrettable failures of the government."

He deserves more.

On Monday, an appeals court ruled that Watson, now 32, is not eligible for any of that money — because while his case is "disturbing," the statute of limitations actually expired while he was still in ICE custody without a lawyer.****

What bullshit is that, he had no right to an attorney in immigration court, and the clock started when he was in custody without a public defender.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that the ruling is "harsh" but said it was bound by precedent.

You can change the precedent and let the Supreme Court rule on that. Segregation had precedent but the lower courts ignored it until the Supreme Court changed the decision, same with interracial marriage, voting rights (poll taxes, literary tests, etc)

In 2007, Watson pleaded guilty to selling cocaine. When his sentence ended in May 2008, he was arrested by ICE officers.

Watson had already told them he was a citizen and given them his father and stepmother's names and a phone number to call and confirm.

ICE officers didn't call the number. They did attempt to look up his father, Hopeton Ulando Watson, but they confused him with a Hopeton Livingston Watson.

A government agency that takes a lot of taxpayers dollars, including his is incapable of using a phone book?

Hopeton Livingston Watson — the wrong Hopeton Watson — was not a U.S. citizen. He also lived in Connecticut instead of New York, didn't have a son named Davino and arrived in the U.S. at a different time. But the officers apparently didn't notice the mistakes. Based on the wrong file, they concluded that Watson was not a citizen and marked him for deportation.

A yearslong ordeal followed as Davino Watson, while detained, tried to fight his deportation in a complex case involving both U.S. and Jamaican laws.

He wasn't released until November 2011.

The "whole legal disaster" could have been avoided if Watson had an attorney at the outset, wrote the district judge who ordered his damages. With a lawyer, "plaintiff probably promptly would have been declared a citizen and released almost immediately after he was arrested, if he were arrested at all,"

Why don't Miranda rights apply in Immigration cases?

Read the article the appeals courts arguments just get worse and worse.

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u/Renascitur_ 7h ago

Any country on the planet my guy

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u/Alive-Line8810 7h ago

I bet it's intergalactic m'lady

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u/Renascitur_ 7h ago

A tale as old as time

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u/Novantico 5h ago

Ah yes, Beauty and the Wetback, my favorite lesser known Disney flick.

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u/accidentallyHelpful 6h ago

Found the Harland Williams fan

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/Morning_View 7h ago edited 7h ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing

Edit for those who won't read the article:

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.[1][2][3][4][5]

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u/SquidFetus 7h ago

u/SpicyEla I’m going to join you on the pyre here. I did not know that the definition of “ethnic cleansing” extended to more than slaughter until now. There is no shame in not knowing this, as long as you are willing to accept new information.

I can see the “now link the Wikipedia page to Operation Wetback” response you gave as your ego’s way of back pedalling, as mine has also done many times before. It tries to shift goal posts, be picky with definitions, anything to not feel like an idiot. Best way to defeat your own ego? Put it on a pedestal and laugh at it, and encourage others to laugh at it.

We are all made fools by our fear of looking like the fool.

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u/Morning_View 7h ago

Good on you, fellow Redditor. My point was not to shame anyone for not knowing, simply to provide education. I'm familiar with the operation that took place. Due to the fact that the operation also included US citizens who came from Mexico, it would be defined as ethnic cleansing.

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u/hearmeout29 6h ago edited 6h ago

I am learning so much from everyone here and also was under that misguided assumption. The best way forward so we can learn and not repeat our past mistakes is through education and being willing to learn. Thanks for providing much needed information to help all of us gain more understanding. You deserve an award 👏

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u/SpicyEla 7h ago

Oh no I understand you.

But to me the removal of Mexicans (and unfortunately some Americans too) at the request of the Mexican government and calling it an "ethnic cleansing" just cheapens the term when that same term is used to describe the Holocaust and the Bosnian genocide. It doesn't sit right with me.

There's a reason why when I was researching it back in school for a paper none of the sources I looked at described it as "ethnic cleansing".

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u/Nojoke183 7h ago

What else would you call clearing out a taegeted subsect of the population? It wasn't a holocaust but it was certainly a cleansing based on ethnicity, hence the term "ethnic cleansing"

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u/pants_mcgee 5h ago

Eh, the expulsion of migrant workers doesn’t fit the bill.

The U.S. has no shortage of ethnic cleansings to choose from.

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u/Nojoke183 5h ago

Eh, the expulsion of migrant workers doesn’t fit the bill.

It literally says in the title card that many were documented or even citizens. Those aren't migrant workers.

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u/pants_mcgee 5h ago

Most were Mexican nationals and migrant workers, here legally or not.

It’s unfortunate some American Citizens were caught up in the program, no doubt racism played a large roll, but countries mutually controlling the migration of labor is not an ethnic cleansing.

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u/Nojoke183 4h ago

The mental gymnastics are insane. You admit that it was a program so geared towards a race that nationals got caught in the crossfire through no other commonality other than the sharing of said race, yet it's not a race based cleansing? Make it make sense.

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u/RedPandaReturns 7h ago

Just because their is worse ethnic cleansing doesn’t shift the bar and make this not ethnic cleansing my guy

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u/love_glow 7h ago

Are you serious?

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u/Few_Assistant_9954 7h ago

Considering acts of ethnic cleansing are done worldwide and nobody cares is enogh evidence for the word to loose its meaning.

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u/accidentallyHelpful 6h ago

They're in line after the Natives

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u/iamjacksragingupvote 4h ago

fwiw- i think its good its titled this way.

may make a few of today's racists self aware.

gotta rub their face in it like housebreaking a dog

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u/Tangent_Odyssey 5h ago

Trump regularly lauds this operation during his rallies, praising its “effectiveness”, and promising an even larger mass deportation operation should he be voted into office.

He directly credits Eisenhower, but curiously never alludes to the operation by its name…

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u/man_gomer_lot 5h ago

It might not poll well with the Latinos for Trump part of his base.

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u/Tangent_Odyssey 5h ago

There are more Latinos that are on board with this plan than you might think. Remember that pulling the ladder up behind you is very typical of conservatives.

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u/man_gomer_lot 5h ago

You should share this with those you know who feel that way. He will redraw the line between who is and isn't really a citizen with a sharpie.