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Top headlines
Lead story
In September 2023, Donald Trump made a sweeping promise that shocked many − even though, as recent memory serves, he made a nearly identical pledge the last time he ran for president.
“Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” Trump said.
Forcibly rounding up and deporting the country’s approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants, including many who have lived here for decades and have children who are U.S. citizens, might sound dystopian. But a version of this plan already happened in the 1950s, when the Eisenhower administration launched the short-lived “Operation Wetback,” which forcibly deported about 100,000 people to Mexico.
In today’s lead story, Katrina Burgess, a scholar of political economy, migration and diaspora at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, brings readers back to a dark few months in American history, from May 1954 through January 1955. She explains why Trump’s potential plan is likely to be even less successful than Operation Wetback once was.
“If he were to win the presidency again, Trump would have the legal authority to deport undocumented immigrants, but the logistical, political and legal obstacles to doing so quickly and massively are even greater today than they were in the 1950s,” Burgess writes.
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Amy Lieberman
Politics + Society Editor
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A U.S. Border Patrol officer shows how he found an undocumented Mexican immigrant under the hood of a car along the U.S.-Mexican border in March 1954.
Associated Press
Katrina Burgess, Tufts University
Donald Trump says he will authorize a roundup of all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. A 1950s program with similar goals, called Operation Wetback, offers lessons.
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Politics + Society
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Danielle K. Brown, Michigan State University
Analysis shows news stories on pro-Palestinian demonstrations at US universities spiked when they involved clashes.
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Economy + Business
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Eric Stokan, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Aaron Deslatte, Indiana University; Michael Overton, University of Idaho
Tax dollars don’t always go to the communities that need them most.
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Susan Rebecca Reay, University of Nebraska Omaha; Ernie Goss, Creighton University
Paying the caregivers of people with disabilities more would improve care while increasing economic growth, a research team found.
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Ethics + Religion
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Christopher P. Scheitle, West Virginia University; Katie Corcoran, West Virginia University
Social factors, from wealth to politics, may shape whether people who do not believe in God identify as an atheist.
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Science + Technology
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Jennifer Robinson, Auburn University
Eating right, exercising, playing sports, reading and journaling are just a few of the ways you can keep your brain in top shape.
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Arts + Culture
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Daniel Guarin, Temple University
Spanish signs are becoming more popular in the Italian Market in South Philadelphia, but decreasing along the Golden Block in North Philadelphia.
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Andrea Kaston Tange, Macalester College
Mothers are smudged out and poorly cloaked beneath drapes in these 19th century portraits. But these photos are not so much relics of shoddy photography than an ode to childhood.
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Environment + Energy
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Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, University of Michigan
Too much pavement and old drainage systems are just two of the problems communities face.
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Mohan Qin, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Nanoplastics are the smallest microplastics, far narrower than a human hair. Very little is known about their composition, structure or how they break down in the environment.
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Education
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James P. Van Overschelde, Texas State University; Minda Lopez, Texas State University
When students get unqualified teachers, it’s like missing one-third of the school year – and that’s what’s been happening with rural students in Texas.
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