From: An Anonymous Reader [Email him]
Watching Larry Kudlow every evening after dinner, as I usually do, he shocked me when I heard him mention “Operation Wetback” by the Eisenhower Administration of the 1950’s and how we need it again!
See it below:
James Fulford writes: Kudlow's discussion of Operation Wetback starts at 4:38 on the YouTube video and there's a transcript on the Fox News site:
Former President Trump, in a speech in Dubuque, Iowa, has pledged that he will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, if elected. Now, Mr. Trump cites the Eisenhower model. What was that? In 1954, something called 'Operation Wetback' was put into place. There was a mass deportation of up to 1.3 million undocumented Mexicans illegally in California, Arizona, and Texas.
It had the tacit approval of the Mexican government, labor groups, and Mexican-Americans who were worried that uncontrolled immigration made the lives of legal immigrants more difficult. Attorney General Herbert Brownell declared that illegal migrants were, and I quote, "displacing domestic workers, affecting work conditions, spreading disease, and contributing to crime rates." Sound familiar? Seems like the only difference between then and now is the size of the catastrophe.
Something’s got to be done here. It's gonna a major election-year issue, as well as something that affects the economy, depressing wages, and damaging native-born workers. Sensible people like myself are all for immigration and we understand its historic contribution to the success of this great country, but it must be legal immigration. That is the truth of the matter.
LARRY KUDLOW: We're facing an unmitigated catastrophe at the southern border, Fox News, September 21, 2023
The reason this is surprising that Kudlow, a longtime movement conservative, a friend of Peter Brimelow, and even a former Trump Administration official, has always been something of an immigration enthusiast, in the WSJ/Cato Institute tradition. See
Even today, he thinks legal immigration is pretty cool. But that's how bad the Biden Border Rush is—it's turning off everyone who formerly thought immigration, even illegal immigration, is OK.
