Against the backdrop of today’s border security debates and Ken Paxton’s attempt to shutdown Annunciation House alleging they facilitate undocumented migrants into the US, it is important to turn to history to a time when Texas officials defied Mexican officials and facilitated the entry of Mexican workers in violation of America’s immigration laws.
On August 1942, Mexican men started making plans to journey to America as laborers to shore up America’s shortage of workers due to World War II. This was the beginning of the Bracero Program where the US government encouraged Mexicans to come work in America as contract laborers. More than 4.5 million labor contracts were issued under the Bracero Program before it ended. For the first five years of the program, none of the Mexican workers went to Texas, leaving Texas farmers without Mexican workers. It wasn’t until 1948 that Mexican farm workers went to work in Texas farms. What led to Mexican agricultural workers to Texas farms has become known as the El Paso Incident, where US officials defied US law and contravened Mexican border guards to entice Mexican workers into Texas fields, violating US law.
Mostly because of Texas’ proximity to México, before the 1942 Bracero Program, Texas accounted for about half of the Mexican labor working American fields. Although the Bracero Program is the best-known guest program for Mexican laborers, there was a previous guest worker program during World War I to help shore up agricultural labor shortages caused by the war. Unlike the Word War I version of the Mexican labor program, the Bracero Program required minimum wage and living conditions for Mexican laborers while working American fields. Because of the minimal requirements, Texas refused to participate in the Bracero Program. To circumvent the requirements required under the Bracero Program, El Paso’s local commissioner of immigration, issued unauthorized year-long permits for Mexican workers. In three days, 2,040 Mexicans were recruited to work in Texas fields, circumventing the Bracero Program. Texas’ issuance of unauthorized work permits for Mexican laborers led to The El Paso Incident.
The El Paso Incident
A group of over one thousand Mexican agricultural workers started to mass south of El Paso on Saturday, October 16, 1948. Mexican troops who had been previously dispatched to the U.S.-México border to guard against Mexicans crossing the border illegally watched uneasily as the mass of Mexicans continued to grow.
Across the river, another mass was starting to form in El Paso. The El Paso mass consisted of large trucks, more than of people. As the sun set, hundreds of Mexicans started to cross the river, defying orders by Mexican troops not to cross into America. The exodus of Mexicans started when Texas growers signaled the Mexicans to cross the river.
Hastily selecting the Mexicans that had crossed into El Paso, the Texas growers loaded them into trucks, like cattle, and provided the immigration officials witnessing the chaos with the counts of laborers they were taking with them.
Instead of the medical checks and orderly paperwork required under the Bracero Program, the Texas growers provided immigration officials with their count and a promise to send over the list of names of the Mexican workers they had loaded onto their trucks.
But the chaos did not end there as other growers offered the Mexican laborers more money for their work, thus leading them away from the trucks to their own trucks. The Mexican diplomatic officials witnessing the events unfold before them questioned the occupants, confirming that they had indeed crossed the border illegally. The Mexican officials summoned the American immigration officials to report the illegal crossing by their compatriots. The American officials informed them that although U.S. immigration laws had been broken, Washington officials had told U.S. immigration officials to stand down and allow the chaos to continue.
For the Mexican officials, this was a clear indication that the American government was undermining the Bracero accord by allowing Mexicans to illegally cross the border under the noses of American immigration officials.
Over a four-day period, four to six thousand Mexicans crossed the river illegally to work American fields with the tacit approval of the U.S. government that tolerated the illegal crossings in full view of immigration officials.
Mexican officials, meanwhile, would not tolerate the U.S. government’s refusal to enforce its own immigration laws and thus suspended the Bracero Program for about a year.
Eventually, the US government offered an official apology to the Mexican government for allowing the Mexicans to illegally cross the border into El Paso.
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Wages Led To The El Paso Incident
Under the Bracero Program, authorized wages were set annually. In 1948, the Mexican government demanded a minimum wage of $3 for each 100 pounds of cotton picked. Texas cotton growers instead paid $2.50. Unwilling to pay the $3, Texas cotton growers demanded that immigration officials look the other way while they trucked undocumented Mexican workers to cotton fields in Texas and New Mexico.
Before the Bracero Program was enacted, the United States government had approached Mexican officials about introducing work permits to Mexican agricultural workers. Mexican officials initially rejected the offer because after the bracero program during World War I had ended there were many reports of abuses suffered by Mexican workers on American fields. Also after World War I had ended, the US had forcefully repatriated braceros to México when their labor was no longer needed. Mexican officials did not want a repeat of the World War I experience.
But in 1942, after the Mexican government announced it was supporting the Allied cause against Germany, Italy and Japan, it reversed its position and agreed to work on a bracero program as part of the war effort.
A primary requirement for México agreeing to a bracero program was that the US government, and not the employers, would be responsible to meet the requirements of each work contract, that included standards of living and minimum wages.
American government officials circumvented the protections the Mexican government had demanded for its work force working on American soil by ignoring its own immigration laws and allowing Mexican workers to cross the river to work American cotton fields. This is now known as The El Paso Incident.
Usurping minimum wages for Mexicans working American fields would not end in 1948 with The El Paso Incident. Another would take place in 1954 when the United States unilaterally opened the border to Mexican workers against the wishes of the Mexican government that demanded that Mexican workers be protected while working American fields.
In 1952, the McCarren-Walter Act ended the exclusion of Asians under US immigration law and enacted three quota systems for immigrants. The first was for “highly-skilled” immigrants, the second was to fill “urgently” needed labor shortages and the third was a quota for family members of US permanent residents.
However, Texas successfully carved out a section of the 1952 immigration law to explicitly allow Texas employers to employ undocumented immigrants. This is known as the Texas Proviso.
The Bracero Program officially ended in 1964 after the United States would not agree to a demand by México to protect Mexican workers and hold US employers responsible for contracting undocumented workers.
The following are the primary sources used for this article:
- Deborah Cohen, “Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico,” University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
- Leigh Avera, “The Bracero Program, A Historical Perspective on the Perpetuation of Isolated Labor Markets in South Texas,” Vanderbilt University, 2016.
- Salinas, Cristina, “Contesting Mobility: Growers, Farm Workers, and U.S.-Mexico Border Enforcement During the Twentieth Century,” Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 2011.
- Deborah Cohen, “Caught in the Middle: The Mexican State’s Relationship with the United States and Its Own Citizens-Workers, 1942-1954,” Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 20, Issue 3., 2001, 110-132.