From 1942 through 1964, millions of Mexican "braceros" were imported through bilateral agreements under the Bracero Program to work for temporary periods on contract to U.S. growers and ranchers. The program was closed down in 1964 in part because of continuing exposes of the deplorable working conditions and other abuses. The Kennedy Administration, known for its concern for civil rights, was unwilling to put its implicit stamp of approval on these conditions and therefore terminated the program.

But, when the government got out of the business of importing braceros, the abuses in agriculture did not stop; instead, illegal immigrants replaced the braceros of the past. It was the political unwillingness to take responsibility for prevailing agricultural working conditions - either by improving them or by endorsing them through the operation of the Bracero Program - that turned legal braceros into today's undocumented farm workers.
____________________

Kitty Calavita, Global Legal Studies Journal II, 1 Calavita/U.S. Immigration Policy: Contradictions and Projections for the Future.

See Also: Kitty Calavita, Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the I.N.S. (1992); Ernesto Galarza, Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story (1964); Juan Ramn Garca, Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954 (1980).