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==The Creation of the Program==
[[File:MexicaliBraceros,1954.jpg|thumb|MexicaliBraceros,1954]]
The Bracero Program, officially named the Labor Importation Program, was created for economic reasons. In the 1930s, white Anglos farmers had decided to move in to the more urban and industrious cities in order to gain more wealth than what they had been earning working their crops. With this huge shift from rural to urban industries, the government had to make an important decision to bring in a labor force that would be able to sustain their large urban population and help pick the crops that would feed them.
==Migrants and Scapegoats==
[[File:"Inquiry Widens on Job Records of Braceros-Books of More Growers in Imperial Valley Scrutinized on Falsification... - NARA - 296742.tif|thumb|"Inquiry Widens on Job Records of Braceros-Books of More Growers in Imperial Valley Scrutinized on Falsification... - NARA - 296742]]
As the Korean War came to the surface in the 1950s, many U.S. citizens had once again felt that the ‘’illegal’’ migrants were getting out of control and were a threat to the U.S. economy in a volatile time. This time the ‘repatriation’ had a name, Operation Wetback. Under President Eisenhower, this operation would successfully deport over one million Mexican and U.S. citizens by 1954. <ref>Deborah Cohen, ‘’Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico’’, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 212-213.</ref> At this point, legislation had fallen through two years prior under President Truman, who tried to reinstate some kind of rights for the migrant workers. Unfortunately, the big agricultural companies and their lobbyists would thwart any efforts he had tried to make in order to come up with humane laws that the growers had to follow in order to keep migrant laborers safe and well-paid. <ref> Robert S. Robinson, “Taking The Fair Deal to the Fields: Truman's Commission on Migratory Labor, Public Law 78, and the Bracero Program, 1950–1952.” ‘’Agricultural History’’ 84, no. 3 (2010): 399. </ref>
==Conclusion==
The Bracero Program is still a relatively unknown historical event. Needless to say, the program had major affects 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. Additionally, the U.S. would continuously rely on Mexican and Latin American migrant workers while calling for more border reinforcement. NAFTA would continuously allow products to flow through the border but would police the bodies that would cross. Finally, NAFTA would cause enormous job losses for U.S. citizens to new ‘’maquiladras’’ that would continue to flourish with the aid of the new trade agreement. <ref> Bill Ong Hing, ‘’Ethical Borders: NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration’’, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), 5.</ref> Essentially, the Bracero Program is important for U.S. and Mexican history because it is a part of a larger pattern that the U.S. constantly involves itself in and only when we acknowledge this pattern can we begin to change the way that migrant labor is handled in the future.
==References==
