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.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

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