others came and went seasonally. This
vast flow of immigration continued after
the demise of the bracero program, filling
the continuing demand of growers for
laborers who would work cheaply.
Because illegal Mexican immigrants kept
labor costs low in the Southwest, they
indirectly pushed Mexican Americans
already living there to migrate north in
search of increased opportunity.
The government tried to block the
flow of undocumented immigration, most
notably in a program called Operation
Wetback. Launched by the INS in 1954,
Operation Wetback was a military-style
program for intensive enforcement of
U.S. immigration laws. In its first year,
the program, which routinely ignored
the civil rights of its targets, resulted in
the deportation of about 1 million
allegedly undocumented Mexican immi-
grants. Illegal immigration, as measured
by the number of apprehensions and
deportations, fell in the years that fol-
lowed but picked up again once the
bracero program ended. During the
1970s, an average of 721,000 undocu-
mented Mexicans were deported eachLA RAZA UNIDA 171Border Patrol Roundup and Deportations under Operation Wetback, 1954
In 1954, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service stepped up its policy of deporting undocumented Mexican laborers.
Operations were concentrated in the three patrol districts that bordered Mexico and carried out through a combination of border
patrol headquarters, staging areas, and regional offices.