Millions of Mexican Americans were deported in the 1930s. Are we about to repeat this ‘ethnic cleansing’?

Two armed American border guards deter a group of illegal immigrants from attempting to cross a river from Mexico into the United States on 1 January 1948. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

One sunny afternoon in February, a large group of plainclothes federal agents descended on Los Angeles’s La Placita Park, a sanctuary and bustling cultural hub for the city’s growing Mexican diaspora. Wielding guns and batons, they barricaded the park and demanded proof of citizenship or legal residency from the congregants trapped within.

Those who failed to produce papers were arrested. More than 400 people were detained and forced on a train back to Mexico, a place many had never been.