Wetbacks Force Ship Into Port (1956)
Tampico, Mexico, Aug. 27 (AP).—Mexican wetbacks being deported from the United States forced the old ship Mercurio Primero to put into this port yesterday in a protest demonstration against crowded shipboard conditions.
About 500 Mexican workers, expelled for entering the United States illegally, were aboard the ship en route from Port Isabel, Tex., to Veracruz.
The workers are commonly called wetbacks because many of them wade the Rio Grande River to enter the United States. The United States Department of Immigration has chartered the Mercurio Primero frequently to return illegal immigrants far down the Mexican coast, so that they would have more difficulty making their way back across the border
The Mexican press has charged the ship is being overcrowded.
Thirty-two of those who jumped overboard swam to beaches near Tampico. Most of the others aboard got off the ship here but some continued to Veracruz on the ship tonight.
Some who disembarked said they were crowded like animals and that they feared for their safety when one of the ship's engines failed. They said there were only two lifeboats with a total capacity of 96.
- Title
- Wetbacks Force Ship Into Port (1956)
- Description
- Operation Wetback is the racially offensive name given to a publicized 1954 summer campaign by the U.S. Border Patrol designed to apprehend and deport Mexican nationals who were in the U.S. illegally. Although it is often reported that over one million people were apprehended under the program, that number is actually from the previous fiscal year. During the fiscal year of which Operation Wetback was a part of, approximately 250,000 deportations were reported. The operation was a part of a policy of removal of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans begun during the Great Depression. This newspaper article describes a mutiny that took place aboard a deportation ship of Mexican workers.
- Date
- 1956-08-27
- Document Type
- Newspaper
- Document Category
- Primary Source
- Bibliographic Citation
- Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), August 27, 1956
- Digital Repository
- Chronicling America
- Title
- Wetbacks Force Ship Into Port (1956)
- Description
- Operation Wetback is the racially offensive name given to a publicized 1954 summer campaign by the U.S. Border Patrol designed to apprehend and deport Mexican nationals who were in the U.S. illegally. Although it is often reported that over one million people were apprehended under the program, that number is actually from the previous fiscal year. During the fiscal year of which Operation Wetback was a part of, approximately 250,000 deportations were reported. The operation was a part of a policy of removal of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans begun during the Great Depression. This newspaper article describes a mutiny that took place aboard a deportation ship of Mexican workers.
- Date
- 1956-08-27
- Document Type
- Newspaper
- Document Category
- Primary Source
- Bibliographic Citation
- Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), August 27, 1956
- Digital Repository
- Chronicling America