Today the enforcement of this nation's immigration laws is largely directed at the problem of illegal immigration. To understand enforcement issues, one must separate the migration of undocumented workers from Mexico, which has its antecedents during World War I, from the more recent phenomenon of a movement of labor from certain less developed nations to the U.S. The latter has only begun to manifest itself since the mid1960's, and involves, based on the evidence to date, several migration streams from various parts of the world.

Basic to the issue of Mexican immigration into the United States is the nature of the border between the two nations. The entire region which now encompasses our boundary once belonged to Spain and later to Mexico. Originally explored and colonized by Spanish-speaking people, it was developed by them for almost three hundred years before a definite boundary was drawn giving to the United States that portion generally north of the Rio Grande. The border, established without regard to either the ethnic composition or the economy of the people within the region, has been called one of the most unrealistic borders in the Western Hemisphere.

Legally, immigration is "the passing or moving into a

country with a purpose of permanent residence." When applied to the border, the place of residence is the region, and thousands of Mexican people have been accustomed to live in the area for generations. The permanence of residence is not destroyed by the mere crossing of a line which is for the most part imaginary, regardless of the side of that line upon which one happened to be born. Unlike immigrants from Europe and the rest of the world, the Mexican has no great psychological or physical obstacles in the path of his migration. Culturally and economically, the northern States of the Republic of Mexico are in many respects similar to the Southwest region of this country.

In a sense, then, the cultural basis for the current

situation in our Southwest was established after the Mexican-American War of 1846. Through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States annexed most of the territory which now comprises the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as smaller parts of Nevada and Utah. Under the terms of this treaty, all Mexican citizens living within this area were to become citizens of the United States if they did not

leave the newly acquired territory within one year or declare their intent to retain Mexican citizenship. Few chose to leave.

Very little immigration across this new political boundary took place until the turn of the century. Between 1910 and 1917, 150,000 Mexicans emigrated to the U.S. largely as a result of violence accompanying the Mexican civil war. With the advent of the First World War, the United States faced certain labor shortages. Not only agriculture, but railroad and mining interests required an available supply of cheap labor. The Secretary of Labor authorized immigration officials to exempt illiterate temporary Mexican farm workers from the immigrant qualifications and head tax provisions of the Immigration Act of 1917. A rapidly industrializing America as well as the nomadic life thrust upon Mexican agricultural workers combined to induce movement into many cities of the Midwest and Northwest. Although the largest number remained in the Southwest, significant enclaves of Mexicans were established in a number of Midwestern cities.

The dispersion continued until the Great Depression when approximately 200,000 Mexicans, who had entered without documentation, were repatriated. Special efforts were made to locate and remove illegal Mexican aliens. In fact, the

campaign became so zealous that certain numbers of persons usually with some form of legal

of Mexican ancestry

equity

were induced to repatriate themselves by

"voluntarily" returning to Mexico. Stopping welfare payments was one device used to aid in this effort. Much of the latent antagonism of Mexican-American communities toward the Immigration and Naturalization Service and its agent, the Border Patrol, which was created in 1924, has its origin in this unhappy period.

The Bracero Program

World War II again brought war-related labor shortages which prompted this country to seek an arrangement with the Government of Mexico for the temporary importation of workers. In August, 1942, a formal agreement between Mexico and the United States was negotiated and the action launched the Mexican Labor Program, better known as the Bracero Program, under which Mexican labor was to be provided for agricultural and railroad laborer jobs. Provisions of the contract stipulated that workers were to be afforded protections in housing, transportation, food, medical services, and wage rights.

The Bracero Program was to terminate in 1947, however, it was continued informally until 1951. In that year, it was formalized as Public Law 78, and the agreement for

Mexico to provide laborers to work in the American rural

labor markets remained in effect until terminated on

December 31, 1964.

Operation Wetback

Illegal Mexican migration increased during the Bracero years because employers, dissatisfied with the Bracero Program, sought to maximize their profits. Texas farmers, because of Mexico's refusal to extend the Bracero Program into their state for a time, probably hired more illegal Mexican aliens than any other state. As a result, the Border Patrol launched Operation Wetback in 1953-54, and nearly 1 million apprehensions of clandestine Mexicans were made in one year.

Some contend that a major function of the Border Patrol in this period was to regulate through selective enforcement rather than by apprehension and exclusion. Certainly one controversial practice of this era was the so-called "wringing out wetbacks." Under this practice,

Mexican illegal aliens were returned to Mexico, if only temporarily, and subsequently recruited and returned under contract with employers in the United States. With the conclusion of Operation Wetback, the apprehension of sizeable numbers of illegal aliens along the border fell significantly until the termination of the Bracero Program in