Topic: WorldNetDaily
Back in 2016, we called out WorldNetDaily columnist Brent Smith's misinformation-laden praise of Dwight Eisenhower's efforts to expel undocumented immigrants from the U.S., known as "Operation Wetback," in the 1950s. Well, Smith is at it again -- and spinning the same misinformation -- in his Dec. 3 column:
Putting aside those who are freely crossing into our country expressly to do us harm – i.e., terrorists (yes, they still exist) – there are untold amounts of illegal immigrants from every corner of the globe just walking across the border, with no end in sight.
From what I can see, practically no one is being denied entry – which leads me to reiterate my theory that this has been the left's plan since the Obama years and before. Only now they've added steroids to the mix. It's an effort to overwhelm the immigration system, a la Cloward-Piven.
President Trump showed that it could be possible to seal the border, so left has flipped the script from, "it's impossible to seal the border," to, if you try, you're a racist, xenophobic white nationalist.
[...]
So is there a way to take care of the illegal-alien infiltration in America?
Well, yes there is. But it would take someone of iron will, who cares nothing of his/her media image, popularity, reelection, or even potential impeachment. One like a supreme commander of Allied Forces, say like Dwight D. Eisenhower, said supreme commander and 34th president of these United States.
"I like Ike" – for giving us the blueprint.
At the time Eisenhower took office in 1953, at least 3 million illegals had already crossed the border and were residing in the United States. It doesn't sound like much by today's pitiful standards, but again, that was almost 70 years ago.
[...]
The illegals very quickly understood that Eisenhower wasn't messing around. Consequently, illegal immigration decreased by 95% in the '50s.
After Ike left office, it was back to a relaxed attitude under Kennedy and every other president since, including Reagan.
Eisenhower proved it could be done, if one has the will of a supreme military commander. Simply give the order that it be done and charge the right people to do it – period.
Ike was able to rid us of the flood of almost 3,000,000 illegals with little more than 1,000 agents, so never accept from anyone that it "Can't Be Done"!
But as Vox reported, Operation Wetback was largely a PR stunt in which the deported immigrants were held and transported in deplorable conditions; it's likely that the first year of the program deported fewer immigrants that had been deported without fanfare the year before. The actual number of deported immigrants was far less than 3 million -- and it's likely far less than the usually cited number of 1.5 million. And it also created an expansion of legal immigration into the U.S., since many of the targeted immigrants were actually farm workers who crossed the border to work on U.S. farms.
Smith wasn't correct about the program in 2016, and he's not correct about it now.
