Trump’s Idea for Mass Deportation Similar to 1930S Removals

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for mass deportation of millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a press conference before his campaign event at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, on Aug. 25, 2015. Scott Olson/Getty Images

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for mass deportation of millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, as well as their American-born children, bears similarities to a large-scale removal that many Mexican-American families faced 85 years ago.

During the Great Depression, counties and cities in the American Southwest and Midwest forced Mexican immigrants and their families to leave the U.S. over concerns they were taking jobs away from whites, despite their legal right to stay.

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