Trump's move to the centre unlikely to work

Washington

UNTIL late last year, it would have been safe to say that most Americans had never heard about a 1950s programme by the US federal government known as Operation Wetback.

In fact, no one would resort to using the expression "wetback" in polite society these days; it is a derogatory term used to refer to Mexican citizens living illegally in the United States. Originally coined to describe Mexicans who entered the US state of Texas from Mexico by crossing the Rio Grande on the border between Texas and Mexico, "wetback" is probably one of the most politically incorrect terms in the English language today, not unlike the slurs once directed against African Americans like, say, "n****r".