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Largest deportation campaign in US history can't compare to Trump's plan

Donald Trump vowed that if he was elected president, he would resurrect Operation Wetback of 1954

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Activists gather outside the White House to protest President Donald Trump's executive actions on immigration in Washington. Photo: Reuters

Kelly Lytle Hernandez | The Conversation

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump vowed that if he was elected president, he would resurrect Operation Wetback of 1954. Operation Wetback, the story goes, was the single largest deportation campaign in U.S. history, resulting in more than one million deportations to Mexico and a dramatic reduction in the number of unlawful entries at the U.S.-Mexico border.

As president, Trump has begun to make good on his pledge by issuing two executive orders that promise to ramp up deportations and expand fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

But mass deportation never happened during Operation