The Bracero Program was a series of bilateral agreements between the United States and Mexico that brought Mexican men into the U.S. as temporary agricultural workers from 1942 through 1964. Over 22 years, 4.6 million contracts were signed, making it the largest guest worker program in U.S. history. On paper it guaranteed wages, housing, and transportation. In practice, contract violations were routine, and a mandatory savings fund swallowed money that many workers never got back.
How the Program Started
When the United States entered World War II, growers warned that military mobilization would strip their fields of labor. On August 4, 1942, the two governments signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement, creating a framework for recruiting Mexican agricultural workers on temporary contracts. Mexico insisted on protections for its citizens: guaranteed wages, housing, and transportation, with its own government retaining authority over who could participate. A companion agreement brought more than 100,000 Mexican workers to American railroads between 1943 and 1945.
The wartime deal was supposed to be temporary. Growers wanted it to continue. In 1951, with the Korean War raising fresh concerns about labor supply, Congress passed Public Law 78, amending the Agricultural Act of 1949. That law authorized the Secretary of Labor to recruit Mexican workers, help negotiate their contracts, and guarantee that employers would honor their wage and transportation obligations. Before workers could be brought into a given area, the Secretary of Labor was supposed to certify that domestic workers were unavailable and that guest labor would not depress local wages or conditions. In practice, that certification was widely treated as a formality.
How Workers Were Selected
Candidates had to be male Mexican citizens with agricultural experience. Younger men often had to present a cartilla, or military service record. Selection happened at centros de contratación, regional recruitment centers run by the Mexican government in cities across the country. Applicants went through interviews with labor recruiters, medical examiners, and soldiers before receiving clearance. Physical exams screened for contagious diseases and confirmed the men could handle demanding labor in extreme climates.
Getting picked was competitive. Men traveled long distances to the recruitment centers and sometimes waited for weeks, spending money they could not afford to lose, with no guarantee of a contract. The Mexican government used its control over selection to manage domestic labor needs and steer remittances toward particular regions.
After selection, workers were transported to American border reception centers in cities like El Paso and Hidalgo, Texas. There they were fingerprinted, photographed, and issued a Form I-100, a laminated identification card known informally as a mica that served as proof of legal presence during the contract. Once paperwork was complete and employer assignments finalized, workers were bused or trained to their worksites, with the employer covering that final leg.
What the Contract Promised
Every bracero and employer signed a standard individual work contract, written in both English and Spanish. Its written protections were substantial:
- Wage parity with non-Mexican workers doing similar jobs in the same area.
- A work guarantee: employers had to provide work, or pay the agreed wage, for at least three-quarters of the contract period.
- Free hygienic housing with beds, blankets, and cooking facilities.
- Employer-paid transportation and meals from the border to the worksite and back.
- A prohibition on using braceros to replace domestic workers on strike or to undercut established wages.
The contract also required employers to withhold 10 percent of each worker’s wages and deposit the money into a savings fund the worker could collect after returning to Mexico. The idea was to give braceros a reason to go home rather than overstay.
What Actually Happened in the Fields
Enforcement was the program’s failure. Employers violated contract terms routinely. Workers were transported in overcrowded, unsafe vehicles. Employers deducted excessive amounts from paychecks for substandard food, housing, and medical care. Hours were long, conditions were harsh, and access to medical treatment or legal help was limited. A 1956 U.S. Department of Labor investigation documented widespread contract violations and discriminatory treatment.
The structural design made abuse almost inevitable. A worker’s legal status was tied to one employer. Leaving an abusive job meant losing your visa. Workers who complained risked deportation, and any attempt to organize collectively met swift retaliation. The Bracero History Archive, which preserves oral histories from former participants, describes the program’s safeguards as existing “in theory.”
The Missing 10 Percent
Under the 1943 revision of the agreement, the withheld 10 percent was routed through Wells Fargo Bank to the Bank of Mexico, which then transferred farm workers’ funds to the Mexican Agricultural Credit Bank and railroad workers’ funds to the Mexican National Savings Bank. Much of the agricultural money never reached the workers. By May 1946, according to a U.S. State Department report, the Mexican Agricultural Credit Bank had disbursed only about 69 percent of the farm workers’ withholdings. Railroad workers fared far better, with a 95 percent disbursement rate.
Decades later, former braceros and their descendants filed a class action, Cruz v. United States, in the Northern District of California. The case settled in February 2009, with the Mexican government agreeing to pay approximately $3,500 per claimant to former braceros or their surviving spouses and children. For workers whose 1940s and 1950s wages had been taken and never returned, the settlement was a small fraction of what they were owed.
Why the Program Ended
Opposition built slowly over two decades. Ernesto Galarza, a labor economist and organizer with the National Farm Labor Union, visited bracero camps and documented how employers used guest workers to break strikes and undercut domestic wages. His 1964 book Merchants of Labor exposed the program’s abuses in detail and helped shift public opinion. Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers, opposed the program on similar grounds, arguing that workers whose legal status depended on employer cooperation made unionization nearly impossible and depressed wages for everyone in the fields. Religious leaders, including Monsignor George Higgins, joined the coalition pressing Congress to let the program end.
Public Law 78 expired on December 31, 1964. Congress declined to renew it, influenced by labor opposition, increased mechanization that reduced the need for hand harvesting, and a shifting political climate. Recruitment centers on both sides of the border closed, and the remaining workers were repatriated.
What Replaced It
The end of the Bracero Program did not end demand for Mexican agricultural labor or the flow of workers willing to supply it; it ended the legal pathway. Migration patterns established over 22 years continued, largely outside the law. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 had already created the H-2 visa for temporary workers, and the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 split that category into H-2A for agricultural workers and H-2B for seasonal non-agricultural work. The H-2A program is the current framework for temporary agricultural labor from Mexico and elsewhere. It carries forward many of the same tensions the Bracero Program exposed: employer demand for labor, worker vulnerability tied to employer-specific status, and the difficulty of enforcing contract protections at a distance.
For the workers themselves, the record is mixed. Many earned more than they could have in Mexico and used their wages to support families and build homes. Many others were cheated, mistreated, and never recovered the savings withheld from their paychecks.