Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million Latinos, making our communities, by far, its largest targets of expulsion. To put this sobering number into perspective, the country only granted 51.7 million immigrants of all backgrounds legal status over that same period. Today we’ll explore some of the tragic history of mass Latino deportations from the U.S.
The first mass removals of Latinos from the U.S. occurred in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Fueled by xenophobic and still extant fears that Mexicans were stealing American (see: white) jobs, between 500,000 and one million Latino were deported throughout California and the Southwest, including tens of thousands of legal migrants. California apologized for these deportations in 2005, though the federal government never has.
The U.S. welcomed 4.6 million braceros to replace American soldiers who went to fight in WWII. When the soldiers returned, the country launched the patently racist Operation Wetback in 1954. The program deported an estimated 1.3 million people. Infamously, couples were separated and parents were deported while their children were in school, all so Americans could ostensibly be hired agricultural jobs they didn’t want.
Mass raids and expulsions continue to the present day. Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama deported 12 million, 10 million, and 5 million people, respectively—most of them Mexicans and Central Americans. Trump, meanwhile, enacted a family separation policy that removed 5,500 children from their parents, hundreds of whom have not been reunited.
Deportation is not a philosophical concern for Latinos. According to the Pew Research Center, 39% of us worry that we, a family member, or someone close to us will be deported. This act has been a very real, violent, and traumatic experience for millions of Latinos living in the U.S. over the last century.
