“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana.
During the summer of 1954 U.S. immigration law enforcement ran Operation Wetback, a campaign that resulted in the deportation of 1.1 million Mexican nationals. The Latin American workers were welcome until the Korean War ended in 1953. Those good(?), White Christians of the Southwest wanted those dark-skinned Catholics gone. Those good(?), White Christians still want those people gone and any excuse will do.
Albert Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs, threatened to shut the border to prevent undocumented people and drugs from entering the USA from Mexico. It was another failure because Mexico convinced Nixon to send them money to fight the problem down there. We lost.
The Reagan administration was a total failure on the subject. Ollie North had the CIA flying drugs from Central America to finance the guns used to buy the U.S. hostages in Iran. Reagan also stopped Planned Parenthood from helping Mexican women with birth control. Those unwanted babies are now at our border. We helped create the problem.
Ollie North got the U.S. involved in the war in Nicaragua. We didn’t like their free election outcome. We mined their harbors and financed the non-democratic Contras. We wanted another fascist government in Nicaragua and finally got it. Many of their children are now at our border because we hated their free elections.
We have created tons of problems in Latin America and we are paying the cost. Donald Trump’s fence did nothing but cause more problems and he became the Great Satan of Latin America. America is weaker because of his antics.
Do we ever learn from history?
Hank Shiver, Mission
