the U.S. Army Forces Command. Bracero program In 1951, the U.S. government passed Public Law 78, a law which formalized the Bracero Program, a temporary work exchange program with Mexico. First begun as a scheme to fill wartime labor shortages during World War II, Congress decided to formalize the program for a number of reasons: first, new concerns were raised about domestic labor gaps during the Korean War; second, political concerns were raised about a potential rise in undocumented immigration if Mexican laborers were not offered a legal pathway to work in the U.S.; third, agricultural employers' associations lobbied hard for the program since they benefited the most from its subsidizations. Estimates place the annual number of laborers entering the U.S. in the 1950s at around 300,000, and a significant number of these Braceros were indigenous Mexicans, who hardly spoke Spanish. Domestically, the program was controversial. The U.S. Department of Labor official overseeing the program called it "legalized slavery", and some Mexican Americans believed the program suppressed their own wages. Dolores Huerta, a prominent labor organizer, first began her work as an organizer with the Stockton Community Service Organization (CSO) in the 1950s, where she organized voter registration drives, and pressed for barrio improvements. She was a vehement opposer of the Bracero program and was a key actor lobbying for its termination. Operation Wetback In 1951, the Truman administration's Commission on Migratory Labor released a scathing and xenophobic report blaming the Southwest's social ills on undocumented immigration. The report stated, "The magnitude [of undocumented migration] ... has reached entirely new levels in the past 7 years ... In its newly achieved proportions, it is virtually an invasion." This report, and an August 1953 tour of Southern California, influenced Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. to push Congress to sanction the employers of undocumented workers. This did not become law. Nevertheless, the new Eisenhower administration moved forward with planning a mass deportation operation. On June 9, 1954, the INS Commissioner Joseph Swing announced Operation Wetback, a campaign to deport all undocumented people from the United States. Extensive media coverage during the period exaggerated the Border Patrol's menace and strength, and extensively reported displays of strength as part of a broader PR campaign against undocumented migration. While 1.1 million INS apprehensions occurred that year, estimates place the number of deportations resulting directly from Operation Wetback at around 33,000 people, with perhaps another 60,000