Special Report: El Paso, Ellis Island And The Rio Vista Processing Center For ‘Legalized Slavery’

Often overlooked in today’s narratives, Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center was the true Ellis Island of the Southwest. As a former director has called it, Rio Vista helped to process thousands into “legalized slavery.”

Recent border narratives have been equating El Paso as the “new Ellis Island” in recent years. The political narratives serve to frame the immigration issue, but it is a false narrative because close to El Paso there was an Ellis Island long before Annunciation House became a border issue. And unlike Annunciation House, that serves an important part of the history of the immigrant story in El Paso, there was another facility that was the true Ellis Island for the southwest. Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center in Socorro was the Ellis Island of the southwest because it operated as an extension of the federal government, unlike Annunciation House.

More important is that El Paso has historically served as an important gateway for migrants from across the globe for many years. It has been called “our Ellis Island” from the descendants of immigrants who trekked across México from the early 1913’s to new homes in places far from the border like Washington state. El Paso was often the entry point because border enforcement was lax compared to other places like Ellis Island.

Because of the lax enforcement of requirements like health inspections, El Paso was the entry point from outside of México, for migrants looking to bypass Ellis Island and its restrictions.

For decades El Paso was the primary gateway for Mexican migrants making their way to the United States until the 1960’s when San Isidro, California became the principal route for Mexicans. [1] “What Ellis Island and New York are to Europeans immigrants, El Paso is to Mexican immigrants,” wrote Oscar Martinez in his 1982 review of Mario García’s Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920. [2]

Although Mexican immigrants have historically been the largest group of immigrants using El Paso as a gateway to the United States, El Paso has acted as an Ellis Island for other migrants throughout history. During the two-year period of 1906 and 1907, El Paso served as an entry point to Syrian immigrants bypassing stricter health controls. Port officials across the country were testing for the highly contagious eye infection of trachoma, that if found on an immigrant would exclude them from the country. Although less than two percent of the Syrian immigrants were rejected for being infected with trachoma, Syrian migrants chose to debark at Mexican ports and make their way to El Paso, whose border was less guarded. Like today, smugglers operated along the U.S.-México border that would help migrants reach the U.S. for a price. [3]

Infectious diseases have often been used by U.S. officials to limit or exclude certain migrants from the country. [4]

One of the Syrian immigrants coming through El Paso was Najib Habib Haddad that immigrated to the US via France to México before reaching the US through El Paso in 1920. According to Chris Haddad, a customs officer in 2018, Najib Haddad started the iconic H & H Car Wash with his three sons around 1958. H&H Car Wash closed in mid-2021 after Maynard Haddad retired.

Although Syrians regarded the El Paso border easier to avoid health inspections, for Mexicans the use of toxic chemical baths remained part of the official regime required of Mexican immigrants to cross the border. It lasted well into the 1960’s, until it ended when the Bracero Program was closed.

It is the Bracero Program that officially made the El Paso area the Ellis Island of the southwest. To understand why, it is important to quickly visit what Ellis Island is to immigrants.

Dear reader, I hope you appreciate this article. Before reading more, I ask that you consider my work and make a small donation to help keep this publication open for everyone. El Paso lacks news diversity. I offer 20+ years of historical knowledge about El Paso’s politics and public policy. Media diversity matters. Make a small donation today to help keep my work going for another 20+ years. Thank you.

Ellis Island

Between 1892 and 1924, Ellis Island “was America’s largest and most active immigration station, where over 12 million immigrants were processed” into America. Unlike Annunciation House, Ellis Island was an official immigration processing center. The labeling of Annunciation House as the Ellis Island of the Southwest misconstrues what Ellis Island was to immigrants. But there is a center in Socorro that can properly be compared to Ellis Island. Before looking at it, it is important to note that Ellis Island wasn’t the welcoming center for immigrants often depicted in today’s narratives.

Ellis Island “was also a place of detainment and deportation” for migrants. Immigrant narratives often overlook the unwelcoming and heartbreaking parts of Ellis Island, focusing instead on the “welcoming” narratives used today.

At Ellis Island in the 1890’s, Americans began to separate what they considered the acceptable migrants into two classes – the “old” and the “new” migrants. The “new immigrant,” the undesirable migrant hailed from countries like Austria, Greece, Italy and Russia among other eastern Europeans, whereas the acceptable migrant was the “old immigrant” that came from countries like Great Britain, Denmark or Germany. “Americans considered the ‘new’ immigrants such as east European Jews and southern Italians, many of whom were destitute and uneducated, to be less assimilable,” than their counterparts. [5] Today, assimilated immigrants continue to be part of the debate about immigrants coming to America, as it was in the late 1800’s.

Although Mexicans previously had access to the US., around 1910, after the Mexican Revolution erupted, Mexican migrants began to be described as “diseased and dirty” by officials to help control the border. The discovery of typhus in El Paso in 1915 led to a large-scale quarantine in 1917 across the U.S.-México border. The quarantine regime was started in El Paso. [6] The delousing of Mexicans, who were labeled as “likely vermin infested,” with kerosene continued along with other medical inspections through the 1930’s, although the typhus outbreak in México ended a few months after it had started 15 years earlier. Kerosene baths would continue through the 1960’s as a delousing agent.

Out of economic necessity, the indignity of the health regime used on migrants from México and other parts of the world were insufficient to stop the immigrants from coming to work in America. America, to, needed immigrants to keep the American economy going. The need for Mexican agricultural workers led to work authorization laws allowing Mexicans to help harvest American crops.

The most often cited agricultural immigrant labor program is the Bracero Program. However, there was a lesser-known bracero program during World War I. Although Congress had just enacted the restrictive Immigration Act of 1917 that required immigrants to pass a literacy test, among other things, before being allowed to enter the country, pressure from American farmers led to the first guest worker program for Mexicans.

As America prepared for war, farmers were concerned that World War I would “cripple farm production in 1917.” [7] Farmers in Washington State proposed using 500,000 Chinese workers on a temporary basis to help with the farm labor shortage. They would be returned to their country after the war. Farmers and organized labor opposed the idea and it was quickly abandoned. [8] Although not officially recognized as the first Bracero Program, the Department of Labor established a guest worker program for farmhands in May 1917. The program specifically allowed Mexican farm workers to work American fields even if they did not meet the 1917’s immigration requirements for literacy. About 27,000 Mexican laborers worked American fields before the program ended in 1921. However, it did not end without controversy. Although the Mexican government saw the labor program as a relief for unemployment and the American government and farmers saw it as a solution to rotting crops, the Mexican workers returned to México with little savings due to exploitation from the farmers. The Mexican migrants reported rampant discrimination where they labored.

The forced expulsion of Mexicans after World War I further antagonized the Mexican government. This led the Mexican government to start imposing requirements on future guest worker program with the United States that included wage standards and anti-discrimination requirements as part of any future agreement.

Twenty years later, after Mexican migrant workers were first welcomed to America’s farms and then expelled back to México because they were no longer needed, the second World War made Mexican laborers essential again for American farms.

The Bracero Program

On August 4, 1942, the US and México signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement which is now known as the Bracero Program. There were three primary provisions in the agreement for The Temporary Migration of Mexican Agricultural Workers to the United States. The first was that “Mexicans contracting work in the United States shall not be engaged in any military service.” On September 16, 1940, the United States had launched the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which required men 21-45 years old to register for the draft. The Mexican government feared that Mexicans would be drafted into military service. The second provision stipulated that the Mexican workers “shall not suffer discriminatory acts of any kind.” This provision referenced Executive Order 8802, signed on June 25, 1941 by Franklin D. Roosevelt banning discrimination against workers working in defense industries. Although the Order was in response to discrimination against African Americans, the bracero agreement included the Order as part of its provisions.

The anti-discrimination provision was demanded by the Mexican government after Mexicans returning from the World War I complained about discrimination and abuse from their employers. The third provision guaranteed the “transportation, living expenses and repatriation established in Article 29 of the Mexican Federal Labor Law.” The Mexican labor law provided that Mexicans working outside of the country were guaranteed transportation and subsistence during their travel to their workplace and would “be paid in full the salary agreed, from which no deductions” would be taken by their employers.”

Even with the guarantees in the agreement, abuses were rampant in the Bracero Program. These included wage theft and discrimination that the agreement was supposed to avoid. Lee G. Williams, who was the US Labor Department employee who oversaw the Bracero Program from 1959 until 1964, when it closed, told The Dallas Morning News in 1980 that the program was nothing more that “legalized slavery.” Williams added that the program was “a way for big corporate farms to get cheap labor supply from Mexico under government sponsorship.” [9]

More than 4 million labor contracts were issued before the agreement was ended in 1964.

But the contracts were insufficient to fill the need of American farmers for laborers. Bureaucratic hurdles and employers with help from immigration officials sought to bypass the wage requirements and standards of living in the agreement.

The bureaucracy kept needed workers out of farms that needed them while farmers in Texas looked for ways to circumvent government officials on both sides of the border to get the Mexican workers they needed.

It is the guarantees of minimum wages and living conditions that excluded Texas farms from the Mexican labor during the initial five years of the program. Texas growers with the help of federal immigration authorities defied US law and encouraged Mexicans to cross river in El Paso, Texas to make their way to worksites in Texas and New Mexico. About four to six thousand Mexicans illegally crossed the river while US officials watched without intervening. This became known as The El Paso Incident.

To enter the US under the Bracero Program would be Mexican farm laborers had to be accepted into the program at recruiting stations in México and processed through reception centers in the US before going to the farms to work. One such reception center was in Socorro.

The Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center

Braceros on their way to American farms had to be processed in one of five processing centers in America. The only one standing today is the Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center in Socorro. The Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center has recently been featured by the community of Socorro as a federal preservation historical site. The City of Socorro Community Initiative, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization is raising funds to rehabilitate the Rio Vista Farm National Historic Site Landmark. However, the history of the farm so far published about the landmark seems to gloss over the uncomfortable history of the center.

In May, CNN reported about Sebastian Corral, a 91-year-old man who arrived at the center in 1953. Corral’s first memory of arriving at the processing center in Socorro was how “unwelcome” he felt although they were being processed to work in American farms legally. Corral told CNN that even after laboring as a bracero in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and New Mexico and the indignities associated with being a bracero, and notwithstanding the protections against discrimination built into the accord, “an El Paso restaurant had refused to serve him because he was Mexican,” he told CNN recently.

Corral, a farm hand from México, working in American farms was one of thousands of braceros that entered the US on temporary work permits under the Bracero Program.

Over 800,000 braceros passed through Rio Vista where they were served “terrible food” were forced to undergo “humiliating medical and psychological examinations” and where they were subjected to “fumigation,” according to CNN.

Former Border Patrol Agent, Ray Reaves explains the process the Bracero Program took from recruiting to crossing the border onto the fields where the bracero would labor. Reaves’ first-person account not only provides an understanding of the process, but it also notes that everyone, including US officials, were aware of the “coercive conditions that braceros endured” under the agreement. [10]

Reaves states that after patrolling along the Texas border, he went to work for the Trans Pecos Cotton Association as a recruiter for the association, while still employed as a Border Patrol agent. Reaves worked out of recruiting stations in Texas and in Chihuahua. His job, as Reaves tells it, was to recruit the number of braceros the association ordered from him. If a farmer needed 50 laborers, it was his job to find them to fill the farmer’s order. [11]

The Border Patrol agent now working for the association explained that the three main recruiting stations were in Chihuahua, Hermosillo and Monterrey. He worked out of the Chihuahua recruiting station. There, Reaves explained, the process was that he would interview a would-be laborer to ascertain whether they “would make a good agricultural worker.” One of things that Reaves did, in addition to a background check, was to inspect the laborer’s hands to see if the hands were that of someone who had worked agricultural fields for years. [12]

Dear reader, I hope you appreciate this article. Before reading more, I ask that you consider my work and make a small donation to help keep this publication open for everyone. El Paso lacks news diversity. I offer 20+ years of historical knowledge about El Paso’s politics and public policy. Media diversity matters. Make a small donation today to help keep my work going for another 20+ years. Thank you.

Faye Terrazas, a clerk typist, who worked at the Rio Vista Processing Center from 1954 to 1957, explained that once a bracero arrived at the center, where they would be working and how long their contract was for had been predetermined, except that the bracero did not know the details of their new job. [13]

By the time an immigrant reached the Rio Vista Processing Center they had been interviewed by Border Patrol agents in México, had medically been cleared and DDT had been applied to them and their clothes. Rio Vista was the last step in a difficult and long process of been approved to work in the United States as a bracero. At the center, the typist would type up their contracts in English and send them on their way. However, sometimes the bracero waited hours or days in a penned-up area under the hot sun until they were transported to the work site or their contracts typed up.

Arrival at the center did not guarantee that US officials would not pay them a visit at the Rio Vista Center as happened to Antonio Esquivel on May 14, 1963. Esquivel, a bracero from Matamoros Coahuila, was interviewed by investigator Frank Gardner. [14]

According to Gardner’s investigative notes, Esquivel was being questioned after an informant identified with the alias “ELP-1-193” had alleged that Esquivel was a member of the Partido Communista Mexicano. (PCM) According to the investigator’s notes, Esquivel denied being a member of any communist group. Although the informant was deemed as “reliable” by the investigator, Esquivel was released after the interview at the Rio Vista Processing Center. [15]

There are several useful details in the investigative notes that should be noted. Starting with the fact that Esquivel was interrogated at the center on his way back to México after fulfilling his latest bracero contract. Also, this was Esquivel’s seventh visit to the US as a bracero. According to the investigator’s summary, at least three unidentified sources with code words starting with “ELP” were consulted about the allegation against Esquivel. One source alleged that Esquivel was a communist and the other two consulted by the investigator, who he deemed were also “credible” either did not believe that Esquivel was a communist or did not know him. Because the three unnamed sources used codewords starting with “ELP” it is possible that all three were operating in El Paso providing information to federal investigators during this time. [16]

Also, the investigator’s notes provide some interesting details about the Bracero Program. The first is that braceros would work more than one contract during the time the Bracero Program was running. The second is that the braceros would enter the United States through a processing center and leave through one once their contract was completed.

Most important, as the investigator’s notes demonstrate, it is likely that when federal investigators interviewed braceros, the braceros would willingly provide additional information to the investigators. It is not known whether the additional information was because of fear of losing their work permit privileges, because of coercion or simply because in this case Esquivel had information to share. Nonetheless, Esquivel provided the investigator with information on five individuals before the interview had ended. Because of the wording that the investigator used, writing that his office “has some derogatory information from other sources,” on the five names that Esquivel provided details about, it is likely that the investigator asked Esquivel about them, and Esquivel replied with information.

About seven months before Esquivel was interviewed at the Rio Vista center, the Cuban Missile Crisis had recently ended, which is likely why the membership in a communist party was important for federal officials.

Annunciation House As The “Ellis Island Of The Southwest Border,”

Although the Bracero Program that ended in 1964 had acted as an Ellis Island for Mexican migrant labor, headlines and political speeches often overlook the Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center and focus on Annunciation House, labeling it the “Ellis Island of the Southwest border.” [17]

Annunciation House has been in the news lately because Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been attempting to shut it down. Notwithstanding Paxton’s attempts to shut down the facility, Annunciation House has been operating as a refuge for asylum seeking migrants for years with the tacit agreement of the federal government. [18]

Although Annunciation House provides important services to immigrants entering the country, its label of being the Ellis Island of the southwest mischaracterizes what the center is. Annunciation House provides housing and other support to migrants, some who have been processed by immigration officials and others that have not. However, unlike the Rio Vista facility and Ellis Island who processed immigrants with the authority of the federal government, Annunciation House does not process migrants.

Federal officials tacitly allow Annunciation House to operate as a refuge for undocumented immigrants that bypass federal officials because the federal government relies on Annunciation House and other immigrant nonprofits to shelter immigrants that federal agents had already processed. [19]

In addition to Annunciation House, the area in South El Paso known as Chihuahuita has been called the “Ellis Island of the Border” for generations. Much of the label is derived because the Segundo Barrio welcomed many immigrants, the majority from México, who stopped in the area before moving on or made themselves a home in that community since the 1800’s. As the gateway to America, Chihuahuita can be called the Ellis Island of the Border when used to define the community as a gateway into America. But it never operated as Ellis Island did.

However, like Annunciation House, labeling the neighborhood as the Ellis Island of the Border mischaracterizes the fact that Ellis Island, like the Rio Vista Reception Center, processed migrants into the country under the authority and the control of the United States government.

On December 13, 2023, the Rio Vista Farm, where the Bracero reception center was located, was officially designated a National Historic Landmark. Plans are underway to open a museum at the location in 2027.

Sources:

1. Oscar J. Martinez, “The Hispanic American Historical Review 62, no. 2, Review of Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920,” 289, May 1, 1982.
2. Martinez, “The Hispanic American Historical Review,” 289.
3. Ann R. Gabbert, “The Historian, vol. 65, no.1, El Paso, A sight for Sore Eyes, Medical and Legal Aspects of Syrian Immigration, 1906-1907,” 2001, 15.
4. Howard Markel and Alexandra Minna Stern, “The Foreignness of Germs: The Persistent Association of Immigrants and Disease in American Society,” Milbank Quarterly, December 2002, 757.
5. Markel, “The Historian, vol. 65,” 760.
6. Markel, “The Historian, vol. 65,” 765.
7. Carl F. Reuss, “The Farm Labor Problem in Washington, 1917-18,” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 4., 1943, 339.
8. Reuss, “The Farm Labor Program,” 343.
9. George Kuempel and Howard Swindle, “Ex-chief recalls bracero ‘slavery’,” The Dallas Morning News, April 30, 1980.
10. Francesca Paradiso, “Examining Past, Present, and Future of Agricultural Labor: From the Bracero Program to the Coalition if Immokalee Workers,” Master’s Thesis, City University of New York, 2023, 23.
11. Paradiso, “Examining Past, Present, and Future,” 23.
12. Paradiso, “Examining Past, Present, and Future,” 24.
13. Paradiso, “Examining Past, Present, and Future,” 28-29.
14. United States Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Summary Report of Investigation, Investigation of Antonio Esquivel on May 14, 1963, document released pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
15. Esquivel investigative notes.
16. Esquivel investigative notes.
17. Aaron Montes, “A refuge for immigrants in El Paso is the ‘Ellis Island of the Southwest border,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2018, (https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-annunciation-house-20180825-story.html)
18. Montes, “A refuge for immigrants in El Paso.”
19. Montes, “A refuge for immigrants in El Paso.”