1,692 by 1962, and an additional plane was added to the force. During the entirety of the Operation, border recruitment of illegal workers by American growers continued, due largely to the low cost of illegal labor, and the desire of growers to avoid the bureaucratic obstacles of the Bracero program. The continuation of illegal immigration, despite the efforts of Operation Wetback, along with public outcry over many US citizens removed, was largely responsible for the failure of the program. Because of these factors, operation Wetback lost funding. The program resulted in a more permanent, strategic border control presence along the Mexico–United States border. Timeline of Operation Wetback Consequences The name "wetback" is a slur applied to illegal entrants who supposedly entered the United States by swimming the Rio Grande. It became a derogatory term applied generally to Mexican laborers, including those who were legal residents. Similarly, the 1855 Greaser Act was so-known based on the anti-Mexican slur "greaser". One of the biggest problems caused by the program for the deportees was sending them to unfamiliar parts of Mexico, where they struggled to find their way home or to continue to support their families. More than 25% of apprehended Mexicans were returned to Veracruz on cargo ships, while others were transported by land to southern cities in Mexico. Those apprehended were often deported without receiving the opportunity to recover their property in the United States, or to contact their families (at least, for the time being). Deportees often were stranded without any food or employment when they were released in Mexico. Deported Mexicans sometimes faced extreme conditions in their country; 88 deported workers died in the heat in July 1955. Another issue was repeated illegal border crossings by those who had been previously deported; from 1960 through 1961, repeaters accounted for 20% of the total deportees. Certain U.S. Border Patrol agents practiced shaving heads to mark repeat offenders who might attempt to reenter the United States. There were also reports of beating and jailing chronically offending illegal immigrants before deporting them. While most complaints concerning deportation were undocumented, there were more than 11,000 formal complaints (about 1% of all actions) from documented bracero workers from 1954 through 1964. Operation Wetback was the culmination of more than a decade of intensifying immigration enforcement. Immigration enforcement actions (removals and returns) rose rapidly from a low of 12,000 in 1942, to 727,000 in 1952,