Changes

Regardless of complaints or violations, the program was renewed in 1947, with Mexicans expanding their work to railroads. The agricultural aspects of the agreement were also renewed in 1951, during the Korean War. Aware of the checkered history of the program, in the early 1950s President Harry S. Truman established a commission to study the agreement, evaluate complaints and violations, and suggest reforms. Any recommendations made by the commission were ignored, ultimately, because the program was economically popular among growers (because of cheap labor) and consumers (who paid lower prices for bracero-harvest crops). President John F. Kennedy finally ended the bracero program in 1964 after his commission determined (and convinced Congress) that the agreement was negatively affecting wages, employment opportunities, and the working conditions of domestic laborers.

The Bracero Program had major effects on both the Mexican economy and the U.S. agricultural business and immigration policies. Mexico would never truly recuperate from all of the migrants that were lost and the implementation of NAFTA only exacerbated the economic issues that it faced. Small farmers in Mexico would continuously have to compete with U.S. imported produce that was ironically being picked by Mexican migrant workers.