# South of the Border **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 5, 2001, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940 "2001-09-05T22:09:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tedster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@Tedster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tedster)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940/1 "2001-09-05T22:09:52Z")
As I struggle to understand the complexities of illegal immigration, it has occurred to me that we have some serious manpower and technology involved in patrolling the US/Mexico border. But what about the last 2 Centuries? Presumably, there were little if any material obstacles to crossing into the US during, say, the 1920’s, or the 1890’s, or whatever. What did we do back then? Were conditions in Mexico such that immigration wasn’t popular? ---
**Author:** ![xicanorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a88e57/32.png) [@xicanorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xicanorex)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940/2 "2001-09-05T22:38:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tedster \* > **But what about the last 2 Centuries?** Well, 2001 minus 200 years (2 centuries) yield us 1801 therefore there wouldn’t be much problem since most of what we consider south of the border wasn’t part of the US until almost 40 to 50 years later. > [@](#): > > **Presumably, there were little if any material obstacles to crossing into the US during, say, the 1920’s, or the 1890’s, or whatever** The great immigration waves from Mexico to the US came from 1900 to 1920’s, 1940’s to 1954, and from the 1970’s to the present time. Illegal immigration was encouraged for the same reasons that it is now for the cheap labor. There has been one wave of forceful repatriation in the US that happened under “Operation Wetback” in 1954. As far as prevention or securing the border, the use of army and special immigration agents have been used. [http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/soc/355lec13.htm](http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/soc/355lec13.htm) > [@](#): > > A significant event in Mexican American history was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the war between Mexico and the U.S. According to terms of the treaty, Mexicans remaining on U.S. land became U.S. citizens and would receive a parcel of land to live on and Spanish would be recognized as a legitimate language. These terms of the treaty were never honored, and about 500,000 Mexicans who chose to convert found themselves in the unusual situation of renting their own land from the U.S. government. The next wave of immigration came between 1890 and 1900, when about 500,000 Mexicans crossed the border in response to U.S. corporations who advertised for cheap labor. Many more escaped to the U.S. during the 1910-1917 Mexican revolution. U.S. policy allowed unrestricted immigration until 1930 when our special “open door” relationship with Mexico came under heavy criticism. Since then, there have been various repatriation efforts to get Mexicans back to Mexico, such as Operation Wetback in 1954 and the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). Operation Wetback gave the Border Patrol extraordinary powers, and IRCA fined employers $3000 for each illegal alien they hired but set up a green card lottery. It’s estimated that the Border Patrol and the INS return back at least 1 million Mexicans a year under these programs, but an estimated 3 million a year slip through. XicanoreX ---
**Author:** ![Wumpus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8c91f0/32.png) [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940/3 "2001-09-05T23:25:57Z")
Prior to the 20th century, there weren’t large numbers of people living on the US side of the US/Mexico border. Few people cared about Mexican immigration to So. Cal. or Texas, because, well, few people lived there. All the immigration furor during the 19th century was about immigrants coming from the “wrong” parts of Europe (e.g. Ireland, Germany, Italy at different times) or from China. FWIW, I used to live on the US/Canada border, and apparently no one made any great effort to police that border until the '30s. ---
**Author:** ![GENE\_STONER](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/2bfe46/32.png) [@GENE\_STONER](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GENE_STONER)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2001, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940/4 "2001-09-06T00:24:41Z")
Plus, the population of Mexico is exploding, thus the rush by the Mexican government to send as many of their poor into the U.S. as possible. Not only that, Mexican schoolbooks teach the Mexicans the lie that the U.S. stole the area now known as the U.S.Southwest. I’m sure many of the illegal aliens believe they’re only taking back whats rightly theirs. It’s called Reconqista. Of course, I’m sure that some of the people on this board who live in states that dont have problems with illegal immigrants will call me a racist for saying this. ---
**Author:** ![xicanorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a88e57/32.png) [@xicanorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xicanorex)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2001, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940/5 "2001-09-06T00:41:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GENE STONER \* > \*\*…Not only that, Mexican schoolbooks teach the Mexicans the lie that the U.S. stole the area now known as the U.S.Southwest. …Of course, I’m sure that some of the people on this board who live in states that dont have problems with illegal immigrants will call me a racist for saying this. \*\* Count to ten . .10 . .9 . .8 . .RAC . . .no, no, no, keep on counting this is not the Debate section. .10 . …9 . . .8 . .7 XicanoreX ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2001, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940/6 "2001-09-06T03:17:58Z")
**GENE STONER** , I would never impute to racism what is more easily explained by ignorance or xenophobia. I see no reason to characterize as a “lie” the fact that the U.S. sent troops to a disputed region of Texas for the express purpose of provoking the Mexican army to “start” a fight that we then used as an excuse to invade Mexico and claim Southern Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and most of Nevada as “reparations”. By most analyses, that would constitute theft. As to the _Reconquista_, do you have an actual citation for this? The overwhelming number of Mexicans entering the country are doing so for the express purpose of making their _own_ lives better. I have seen no evidence that there is any organization in the migration. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2001, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940/7 "2001-09-06T03:48:05Z")
It’s not just Mexico. A significant percentage of the illegal immigrants crossing the US/Mexico border are from Central and South America, especially El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. ---
**Author:** ![jaimest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/48db29/32.png) [@jaimest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaimest)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2001, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-of-the-border/79940/8 "2001-09-06T06:19:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tomndebb \* > \*\* > > As to the _Reconquista_, do you have an actual citation for this? The overwhelming number of Mexicans entering the country are doing so for the express purpose of making their _own_ lives better. I have seen no evidence that there is any organization in the migration. \*\* Living on the border, all I ever have hear about the \*Reconquista today \* comes from anti-immigrant groups who hold it up as evidence of a Mexican/Latino “conspiracy” against America. The term Reconquista originally referred to the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims. In the 1960’s a few radical groups tried to draw a parallel between that “Reconquista” and what they hoped to be the eventual reorganization of the U.S. Southwest along Chicano lines. Of course this all sounds very threatening and radical - but you have to realize that - in say 1960, a Mexican-American high school student could be paddled for using Spanish. Signs on truck stops often said “No Dogs, No Niggers, No Mexicans”, and it was seen as a funny little joke. Even in ‘progressive’ California, Mexican-American high school students were channeled into home-ec and shop classes regardless of their abilities. And many of the Mexican-Americans behind this were not new immigrants -they were people who knew very well that their families had been living in the Southwestern states before 1836 or 1848. (Immigrants, in general, do not like to ‘rock the boat’).So it can’t be surprising that some revolutionary rhetoric thrived among Spanish speaking communities in the Southwest. However, the various groups that promoted this “reconquista” have pretty much fizzled out since the 1970’s. But hearing some people - you’d think that there was a Fifth Collumn of Mexicans stealthily organizing in the Southwest, poised to “reconquer” the country. But most immigrants are too busy working and raising children to get involved in such political intrigues anyway.