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Land originally owned by farmers and the working poor were swallowed up by these companies, leaving these Mexican citizens with no other means to provide for their families. The economic circumstances and infrastructural possibilities were set for a culture of migratory labor.<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), 35-37. See also Deborah Cohen, ‘’Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico’’, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 37.</ref>
====The Bracero Programs sought to ensure access to Cheap Guest Workers for American Farms====
Whatever the circumstances, Mexico has long been a source of cheap temporary labor for the United States. Until the establishment of the U.S. Border Patrol in 1924, citizens of both countries crossed the border at will, and farmers in the southwestern United States recruited seasonal workers from Mexico without government oversight. Mexican workers also maintained the productivity of American agriculture after the United States entered World War I. The bracero program, at least on paper, was an extension of this type of labor arrangement—a more formal and more tightly supervised agreement to provide an adequate labor force during another global military conflict. <ref>Gonzalez, Gilbert G. Guest Workers or Colonized Labor? Mexican Labor Migration to the United States. Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2005. Study of the state of Mexican labor immigration to the United States into the early twenty-first century.</ref>
====Bracero Program's Significance====
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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.
