Patrick Timmons, How Richard Nixon’s Operation Intercept laid the foundation for decades of U.S.-Mexico border policy, including Donald Trump’s wall, nacla.org, 03/27/2017

"Richard Nixon was the first U.S. president who made a promise to close the U.S-Mexican border to illegal drugs and unwanted people part of an election-winning strategy. Speaking on the campaign trail from Anaheim, California, in 1968, Candidate Nixon promised to deal with the “marijuana problem” protested by parents of California’s youth by intercepting Mexican drugs at the border. Then, on September 21, 1969, just eight months after his inauguration, President Nixon’s Treasury and Justice D..