The fourth GOP debate took place last night, and it was a much calmer event than the previous three. However, a few comments left me far more disturbed than the previous three debates combined. During the debate, Donald praised Eisenhower’s deportation efforts, and many praised him for it – including Ann Coulter and Michelle Bachmann, among others.

As I sat in my living room, praying that someone would call him out for repeatedly praising the 1950s deportation efforts, I had a knot in my stomach. Trump didn’t use the slang term for Eisenhower’s repatriation project, nor the details of what happened, and I think I know why. His comments were rather vague, yet telling:

Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower, good president, great president, people liked him. “I like Ike,” right? The expression. “I like Ike.” Moved a 1.5 million illegal immigrants out of this country, moved them just beyond the border. They came back.

Moved them again beyond the border, they came back. Didn’t like it. Moved them way south. They never came back.

Dwight Eisenhower. You don’t get nicer. You don’t get friendlier. They moved a 1.5 million out. We have no choice. We have no choice.

As many praise Trump’s comments on Eisenhower, I thought I’d put together a few facts on “Operation Wetback.”

During the 1940s, America and Mexico came together under the umbrella of the Good Neighbor Policy, and worked to protect the rights of Hispanic agricultural workers. The program they created was formalized as the Bracero Program. The program was designed to supply workers during the World War II shortage. By the 1950s, it is estimated that the US was bringing in over 300,000 Mexican workers per year, while simultaneously fighting ferociously to control a steady inflow of illegal immigrants. Many remained after their work time expired when the Mexican government rescinded the Bracero Program, which prompted the repatriation project known as “Operation Wetback” under Eisenhower.

Mexican workers were deemed an “unlimited supply of cheap labor” by many in the United States, and their desperation for work and any kind of lively hood left them exposed as targets for exploitation. Not only that, but the Bracero Program itself failed to curb the illegal immigration issue due to such facts.

The “successful” repatriation that occurred during Eisenhower’s presidency has been greatly exaggerated, including the numbers. The most accurate estimation is 1.3 million, so Trump was close, but even that number is highly questioned. The number includes deportations that would have happened with or without the program, and most that already had happened.

Despite his lack of innovation, Commissioner Swing declared the summer campaign a success when they reported that 1,089,583 persons had been apprehended by the U. S. Border Patrol during FY 1954.89 Yet, the over one million deportations recorded for 1954 cannot be attributed to that summer’s program because F Y 1954 closed on 30 June 1954, just two weeks into the summer campaign. The large numbers of apprehensions recorded for FY 1954, therefore, were made between 1 July 1953 and 30 June 1954. Apprehensions for FY 1955, which included the largest portion of the summer of 1954 campaign, registered only 254,096 apprehensions. 90 Fewer apprehensions had not been made since 1948, making the law enforcement accomplishments of the summer of 1954 less than they were portrayed to be. Understanding that mass deportations did not accompany the campaign of the summer of 1954, however, does not render the summer of 1954 meaningless. Rather, instead of being a major law enforcement campaign, the summer of 1954 can better be understood as a massive publicity campaign for what had happened the year before and a public claiming of migration control by the U. S. government despite the critical contributions and participation of the Mexican government.

Yet the purpose of the program, or publicity campaign, reeked of improper handling.

A major concern of the operation was to discourage reentry by moving the workers far into the interior. Others were to be sent through El Paso. On July 15, the first day of the operation, 4,800 immigrants were apprehended. Thereafter the daily totals dwindled to an average of about 1,100 a day. The forces used by the government were actually relatively small, perhaps no more than 700 men, but were exaggerated by border patrol officials who hoped to scare unauthorized workers into flight back to Mexico. Valley newspapers also exaggerated the size of the government forces for their own purposes: generally unfavorable editorials attacked the Border Patrol as an invading army seeking to deprive Valley farmers of their inexpensive labor force.

The sweep was so swift that many immigrants were not able to collect their property, nor contact their family. The largest issue is that the vast majority were transported to obscure locations as an attempt to keep them from crossing the border, but this led to them being unable to take care of themselves, find shelter, and get to their families.

In Mexicali, Mexico, temperatures can reach 125 degrees as heat envelops an arid desert. Without a body of water nearby to moderate the climate, the heavy sun is relentless — and deadly.

During the summer of 1955, this is where hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were “dumped” after being discovered as migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Unloaded from buses and trucks carrying several times their capacity, the deportees stumbled into the Mexicali streets with few possessions and no way of getting home.

This was strategic: the more obscure the destination within the Mexican interior, the less opportunities they would have to return to America. But the tactic also proved to be dangerous, as the migrants were left without resources to survive.

After one such round-up and transfer in July, 88 people died from heat stroke.

The author continues:

In another drop-off point in Nuevo Laredo, the migrants were “brought like cows” into the desert.

Among the over 25 percent who were transported by boat from Port Isabel, Texas, to the Mexican Gulf Coast, many shared cramped quarters in vessels resembling an “eighteenth century slave ship” and “penal hell ship.”

You can praise Eisenhower until you’re blue in the face, but this particular issue is not a feather anyone should be placing in his cap. Sponsoring and signing Civil Rights Bill? Yes! Balancing the budget? Yes! Operation Wetback? No. Praising the enforcement of the laws, regulations, etc., is reasonable, touting the deportation portion is irresponsible.

I’m 100% against illegal immigration, and I think it’s a major issue plaguing our nation. I’m also 100% against ridiculous ideas that don’t work, simply because they sound good. George W. Bush and Reagan, who I’d note both had a significantly large Hispanic following, knew better than to tout such impossible ideas, and many men on that stage last night are being labeled as amnesty backers – nothing is further from the truth.

So what would mass deportation look like in today’s world of assimilated immigrants? Donald says it would be “humane,” so let’s run with his theory. Those illegal immigrants are still covered under due process, and if we ignore this fact out of anger, what do we even stand for anymore? Many illegal immigrants living in the U.S. are completely assimilated, for years, without ties in their homeland. The U.S. maintains space for 34,000 immigrants who are awaiting deportation proceedings, how backed up would that process get? The variables are endless, yet Trump has said he can deport illegal immigrants within an 18 month – 2 year window, but the numbers don’t add up.

A 2015 study by the American Action Forum, a conservative pro-immigration group, estimates the federal government would have to spend roughly $400 billion to $600 billion to deport 11.3 million undocumented immigrants and prevent future unlawful entry into the U.S. over a 20 year time period.

In order to implement the plan, the study says, each immigrant would have to be apprehended, detained, legally processed, and transported to his or her home country.

Mass deportation will burden the economy, the report goes on. Removing all undocumented immigrants would cause the labor force to shrink by 6.4%. As a result, 20 years from now the economy would be nearly 6% or $1.6 trillion smaller than it would be if the immigrants are allowed to stay.

So how would Trump defy all statistical odds, and do it humanely? Would each person be given due process? Would he create a centralized location for 11 MILLION human beings where they have no ties, or send them to their original homes in Panama, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, or Nicaragua, where they more than likely will have zero resources and ability to survive? Especially those who merely overstayed their visas. How large would the U.S. government have to be to pull off such a stunt, and how much money would it cost to pull it off? We as conservatives, quite honestly, shouldn’t support ushering in a massive police state mentality, the disregarding of personal rights, police raids, etc… The resources, government size, and so forth, would make Obama’s big government look like child’s play. In addition, people who think we shouldn’t go through all of those “humane steps” – and would support such actions demonstrated by Operation Wetback –  would embrace the narrative of the left and become the monsters they accuse us of being.

So you see, those of us fighting Trump’s 2 year immigration ideals are not pro-amnesty, we’re simply realists.  Amnesty is an official pardon for political offenses, commonsense conservatives are not advocating for amnesty, we’re advocating for something that works. Deport those with a criminal record, end sanctuary cities, issue non-immigrant visas to those who agree to registration, fees, fines, background checks, language requirements, tax requirements, and zero access to government programs. And for God’s sake, SECURE THE BORDER! We need sensible solutions. I understand that people are feeding off the vitriol right now because they’re angry, impatient, and tired of waiting for our government to make a move, that doesn’t mean you advocate for something that has the same odds of coming to fruition as I have of getting my hands on an authentic unicorn.

I think the problem is that there are a subset of people who have found themselves, and their beliefs, unaligned with the conservative small government movement. That is why Trump, a big government quasi-democrat, is successful in gaining followers through his immigration push. We are indeed the party of responsibility, so let’s do our homework before we start advocating for impossible deportation plans, and before we celebrate programs that are more of a stain on our history than a success.