On Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate and again on Wednesday morning, GOP candidate Donald Trump touted the controversial 1950s program — with the derogatory nickname of 'Operation Wetback' — as a way of dealing with the nation's approximately 11 million immigrants currently without legal status, NBC News reported.
Under the Eisenhower program, immigrants inside the U.S. were rounded up and deported to remote places, resulting in deaths and criticism of human rights abuses. Though Trump extolled the program's praises on the GOP debate, he didn't call "Operation Wetback" by name.
Trump was asked on Wednesday during "Morning Joe" how he would deport 11m people, and he said he would have a "deportation force" that would do it humanely.
