The Legality of the Bracero Program
The legality of the Bracero Program
can be seen as a slippery slope. It began as a solution to the labor shortage
created by World War II, as discussed in the Introduction. This was possible
due to Congress authorizing Public Law 45 in 1942 as a temporary emergency
measure, even though Mexicans had long worked in the United States (Mulcahy). The
American Farm Bureau Federation wrote House Joint Resolution 96 with input from
various farm organizations and agriculture employers in general (Hollander). Public
Law 45 was the resulting bill that was a guest-worker program that would in
time become known as the Bracero Program (Gutierrez). “This legalized
importation of Mexican labor meant that migrant workers, once contracted,
essentially became a captive workforce under the jurisdiction of the US federal
government, and thus, a guarantee to US employers of unlimited ‘cheap"
labor’” (De Genova). The first braceros joined the program and traveled to the
places they needed to in an effort to make a living. Moreover, it gave the Farm
Bureau just about every concession it demanded from the state’s programme for altering
wartime migrant labor distribution. This included “the discontinuance of
various restrictions related to minimum wage, housing conditions and unionization
activities” (Hollander). On April 29, 1943 President Theodore Roosevelt signed
Public Law 45, the “Peonage Law” (Hollander).
Then on 28 April 1947 Congress
passed the Public Law 40, which declared that the program “may be continued up
to and including December 31, 1947, and thereafter shall be liquidated within
thirty days” (Bickerton). Under this law “the federal government's practice of
assuming the cost for recruitment and transportation of braceros to and from
Mexico, as it had during the war,” ended (Nelson). “In December 1947, however,
the House Committee on Agriculture met with growers and federal administrators
to devise and sanction an extralegal continuation of the program” (Kang). Then
in 1948 Public Law 893 went into effect which allocated $2.5 million for the
program and lead to its continuation (Kirstein, 66). Then on August 1949,
United States and Mexican officials came to another agreement that lasted until
1951.
On July 12, 1951 Public Law 78 was enacted to extend the Public Law 45 program (Hollander). It allowed “specific statutory authority for the United States to negotiate an agreement with Mexico to import Mexican farmworkers under contract” (Bickerton). Under this authority, the United States and Mexico were able to create the 1951 Bracero accord. This “reestablished the government-to-government contract system and set forth elaborate guarantees and benefits for the Mexican laborers” (Bickerton). This accord would serve as the international frame work of for the importing of Mexican contract laborers until the program ended in 1964. Then next year Public Law 414, the Immigration and Nationality Act, was enacted, which set the terms of the temporary workers that were not braceros. This law “limited the use of braceros to regions where the secretary of labor certified that: (1) a shortage of domestic workers existed; (2) the use of braceros would not have an adverse effect on the wages and working conditions of similarly situated domestic workers; and (3) the employer tried, but was unable, to hire domestic laborers at wages and hours similar to those offered Mexicans” (Bickerton). Even though the secretary of labor was supposed to certify that the importation of foreign labor was not adversely affecting both wages and working conditions for local workers in the areas that the braceros were concentrated, agricultural wages either were maintained or fell. Some studies have even showed that growers deliberately exploited the Bracero Program to lower farm wages. Research was able to link the “growers' inability to hire willing domestic laborers to the low wages that resulted from the importation of foreign workers” (Bickerton). The end of the Bracero Program was very predictable as seen in the newspaper article from The New York Times, below shows. The amount of requested bracero workers was decreasing throughout the country. The program came to its official end in 1964 while still under Public Law 78, even though throughout small changes were made.
On July 12, 1951 Public Law 78 was enacted to extend the Public Law 45 program (Hollander). It allowed “specific statutory authority for the United States to negotiate an agreement with Mexico to import Mexican farmworkers under contract” (Bickerton). Under this authority, the United States and Mexico were able to create the 1951 Bracero accord. This “reestablished the government-to-government contract system and set forth elaborate guarantees and benefits for the Mexican laborers” (Bickerton). This accord would serve as the international frame work of for the importing of Mexican contract laborers until the program ended in 1964. Then next year Public Law 414, the Immigration and Nationality Act, was enacted, which set the terms of the temporary workers that were not braceros. This law “limited the use of braceros to regions where the secretary of labor certified that: (1) a shortage of domestic workers existed; (2) the use of braceros would not have an adverse effect on the wages and working conditions of similarly situated domestic workers; and (3) the employer tried, but was unable, to hire domestic laborers at wages and hours similar to those offered Mexicans” (Bickerton). Even though the secretary of labor was supposed to certify that the importation of foreign labor was not adversely affecting both wages and working conditions for local workers in the areas that the braceros were concentrated, agricultural wages either were maintained or fell. Some studies have even showed that growers deliberately exploited the Bracero Program to lower farm wages. Research was able to link the “growers' inability to hire willing domestic laborers to the low wages that resulted from the importation of foreign workers” (Bickerton). The end of the Bracero Program was very predictable as seen in the newspaper article from The New York Times, below shows. The amount of requested bracero workers was decreasing throughout the country. The program came to its official end in 1964 while still under Public Law 78, even though throughout small changes were made.
The end of the Bracero Program’s was
explained in the following article, which explains Congress said they would not
allow the program to be extended. Congress was said to not want the program to
be continued because of its “temporary” status and it was only a temporary
solution to the farm labor dilemma. They argued there were enough unemployed Americans
replace the laborers of the Bracero Program. It lays out some factor that
should be included in a long term solution.