Feds’ Fun With Foreigners Quiz

The federal government likes to come up with clever — and not-so-PC — code names for its anti-illegal immigration campaigns. Can you tell which code names are real?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


1. Which of the following “unsanitary” INS operations was real?

A) Operation Dirty Laundry: An INS crackdown on Mexican illegal immigrants who were being smuggled into Southern California ports on board vessels carrying seized counterfeit clothing.

B) Operation Clean Sheets: A 1997 raid by the INS of nearly 100 hotels to ferret out undocumented workers, most of whom were Mexicans.

C) Operation No Borscht for You: A 1990 federal investigation into a rash of food poisoning in the Russian District of Los Angeles, where an estimated 250 illegal immigrants were working in the local food markets.

D) None of the above.

2. The 1988 operation to round up a wave of Jamaican immigrants who allegedly were running a criminal empire of guns and drugs was called:

A) Operation Deadly Dreadlocks

B) Operation Going, Going, Ganja

C) Operation Rum Punch

D) Operation Rasta-Mañana

E) Operation Redeye Reduction

3. Which of the following “dragon-related” missions involving Chinese people was not real?

A) Operation Sea Dragon: An operation to stop boatloads of illegal Chinese immigrants from being smuggled into US shores.

B) Operation Dragon Fire: A crackdown on Chinese weapons smuggling at the Port of Oakland, California.

C) Operation Dragon Eye: A mission to capture middle-class Chinese people who tried to circumvent immigration laws by fraudulently applying for amnesty under the seasonal agricultural-worker program.

D) Operation Draggin’ Ass: A purge of Chinese citizens who were brought over on H-1B visas to work in the high-tech industry but who, because of health-related issues, were not pulling their weight in the workplace.

4. “Operation Rising Sun” — a federal campaign to stop a nationwide Asian-American crime network — got its name because it involved the arrest of illegal immigrants from where?

A) Japan

B) Vietnam

C) China

D) All of the above

5. “Operation Hot Sauce” — a 1993 INS raid of two businesses in New Mexico that employed illegal immigrants — was one of several federal missions that targeted Latino immigrants. What was another?

A) Operation Chihuahua

B) Operation Tequila

C) Operation Piñata

D) Operation We Don’t Need No Steenking Green Cards

6. The INS’s 1998 operation to deport immigrants in New Mexico who had 3 or more D.U.I. violations was decried by some civil-rights activists as invasive and discriminatory. This operation was called:

A) Operation Designated Drive-out

B) Operation None for the Road

C) Operation Last Call

D) Operation Thirsty Sanchez

Are those your final answers? Click the button and find our if you’re INS material.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate