Migrant workers have played an integral role in the U.S. economy for centuries. For instance, without the help of the Chinese peasants that fled Asia in the 1850s, the Central Pacific Railroad may have not of been completed in a timely manner. Similarly, Irish migrant labor became an invaluable resource for the American industrial system during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet, from the early 1800s until World War 1, America’s borders virtually had no confines on immigration or its patterns. But the First World War greatly reshaped global migration patterns, and these lasting transformations would ultimately lead to the formation of America’s H-2A migrant laborer program.
The onset of the First World War created a temporary end of European migrants to the United States. It was soon recognized that Mexican workers were needed in order to fill the existing labor shortages. During the wartime period they did just that, but after the War it abruptly came to a halt. “Soon afterward [WW1], the Great Depression arrived and Mexican workers were seen as a threat to American jobs. More than 500,000 people, including some United States citizens, were forcibly deported” (A brief history, 2012). A decade into America’s …show more content…
The initial bilateral agreement between Mexico and the United States was for a temporary exchange of contract laborers. The program started out small in design and attempted to bring those experienced laborers to the United States, specifically to harvest sugar beets. But after the expiration of the initial agreement in 1947, the program continued under a variety of laws until its formal end in 1964. Moreover, “The bracero program is now widely believed to have contributed greatly to patterns of unauthorized immigration to the United States from Mexico” (A brief history, 2012). During the program's peak, more than 400,000 migrant laborers came from Mexico each year to work in America’s agricultural