Pearce calls on 'Operation Wetback' for illegals/Sarah Lynch/East Valley Tribune/[[September 29, 2006]]/ link

East Valley lawmaker Russell Pearce angered the Hispanic community this week when he called for the reinstatement of a pre-civil rights era program that called for the mass deportation of illegal immigrants...

Rep. Pearce, R-Mesa, said during an interview on "Morning Edition" on KJZZ (91.5 FM) that he would support bringing back a controversial federal program dubbed "Operation Wetback," which was designed to apprehend and deport illegal Mexican immigrants in the mid-1950s...

"We know what we need to do," Pearce said on the radio show. "In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower put together a task force called ‘Operation Wetback.' He removed, in less than a year, 1.3 million illegal aliens. They must be deported."

The term "wetback" is widely considered derogatory. It was first used to describe those who swam across the Rio Grande to cross the border into the United States.

The Arizona Democratic Party pointed out Pearce's comments in a news release Thursday ([[ Pearce Resurrects "Operation Wetback"]]) that contained expressions of anger from Hispanic activists...

...It would cost more than $40 billion a year to round up and deport the millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S., according to a study last year by the liberal think tank Center for American Progress.

That study was incredibly amateurish, as the link shows.

Pearce said he was only referring to the term "wetback" in its historical context. He said he would never refer to somebody by that word because he knows it could hurt feelings...