Rural Laws: April, 2001 - Number #12

The US signed a bilateral bracero (person who works with arms or hands) program with Mexico on June 23, 1942, and over the next 22 years, some 4.6 million Mexicans were admitted to the US as braceros or guest workers to fill jobs on US farms.

These legal guest workers were associated with more legal and illegal migration. Between 1942 and 1944, 13,000 Mexican immigrants were admitted and 54,000 were apprehended; between 1962 and 1964, 146,000 were admitted and 268,000 were apprehended. More Mexicans-some 5.3 million-were apprehended in the US between 1942 and 1964 than were admitted as braceros-some 4.6 million.

During the first phase of the bracero program, the US government guaranteed bracero contracts, meaning that the US government would pay wages owed to Mexican workers if US farmers did not. The 256,000 Mexicans who received contracts to work as braceros in the US between 1942 and 1949 had 10 percent of their US wages withheld by US employers and forwarded via the Wells Fargo Bank and Union Trust Company of San Francisco to the Bank of Mexico and then to the Banco de Credito Agricola in Mexico.

The theory was that, because of these forced savings, braceros would arrive home with at least some savings. In 1948, a new agreement had US employers issuing the bracero a check for money withheld when the work contract expired, and the check was to be validated when the bracero returned to Mexico. The 10 percent deductions stopped in 1950.

Several class-action suits have been filed seeking to recover the forced savings, plus interest, from the Mexican and US governments. A suit filed March 1, 2001 by a team that includes Valeriano Saucedo, mayor of Lindsay, on behalf of four former braceros seeks $30 to $50 million in forced bracero savings that were not returned to workers, and an additional $500 billion in punitive damages. Another suit on behalf of former braceros was filed in Fresno in February 2001. Attorneys are hoping that the publicity surrounding the filing of these suits will bring forward more workers who have documentation of their lost savings. Some farm employers counter that the purpose of the suits and rallies is an attempt to block a new bracero program with Mexico (www.ghslaw.com/).

Mexico's Foreign Relations Ministry says that rural banks were consolidated into the rural development bank Banrural in 1976, and that there are no records of what happened to the forced bracero savings. However on November 1, 1999, Banrural began accepting claims from braceros who think they qualify for the bracero savings funds.

The Los Angeles Times on March 30, 2001 reviewed a 1946 Mexican report, Los Braceros, that said $8 million in forced savings was repaid to braceros in 1946, and that only $6 million is unaccounted for. A total of $34 million was deducted from bracero earnings between 1942 and 1946; savings deductions ceased in January 1946.

Rich Connell and Robert J. Lopez, "Mexican Report Contradicts Claims That '40s War Workers Weren't Paid," Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2001. Kiley Russell, "Former migrant workers suing US, Mexico for back wages," AP, March 5, 2001. Jerry Bier, "$505b suit filed for Mexican workers," Fresno Bee, February 24, 2001.