“Wetbacks”

The term “wetbacks” refers to migrants who enter the United States unlawfully by crossing the Rio Grande or jumping off boats along the Pacific Coast. It is often used in a derisive way to criticize the illegal means by which migrants enter and find employment in a variety of sectors. This term also implicitly identifies unauthorized migrants from Mexico, and several key historical events popularized its usage today. This entry discusses the origins of legislation related to illegal immigrants, the history of U.S. government action in this area, and the contemporary situation.

The first event dates back to 1951, when Congress introduced a bill, S. 1851, amending the Immigration Act of 1917. Commonly called the “wetback bill,” this measure sought to punish anyone entering the country illegally or harboring or concealing an unauthorized migrant. Eventually the bill became Public Law 283, which criminalized the harboring of illegal entrants. This law in itself, however, is not as significant as the circumstances leading up to its passage and the subsequent development.

This bill was enacted during the height of the Mexican Farm Labor Program, or the Bracero Program, a bilateral agreement between the governments of the United States and Mexico signed on July 23, 1942. The United States desperately needed a massive labor force as its participation in World War II drained thousands of laborers from farms and cities. The agricultural sector experienced an acute labor shortage; as early as October 1939, the Federal Bureau of Agricultural Economics estimated that some 1.7 million farmers would leave for cities in the burgeoning war-related industries. The Bracero Program was [Page 1394]intended as a temporary measure during this wartime emergency, but the program was extended for almost 2 decades after the end of the war.

Several flaws in the Bracero Program led to the increase in the illegal crossings. First, the annual quota of braceros was significantly lower than the actual labor needs, thus creating an opportunity for employers to persist in their practice of hiring unauthorized workers. Second, the bureaucratic procedures in procuring Mexican farmworkers made the program less responsive to the actual needs of employers who wanted mobile and flexible workers without having to wait to prove a labor shortage in their region and then submit requests for braceros. Third, despite the existence of the “anti-wetback” legislation, it became evident that Congress was unwilling to punish employers for employing unauthorized workers.

Although the Bracero Program was sanctioned and administered by the two governments, the failure to enforce the contract terms and the gradual waning of the administrative control over the program escalated unauthorized migration and pitted one agency's interest against another's. While the Department of Labor was centrally responsible for assessing and meeting domestic labor demand, the increasing flow of unauthorized migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border placed the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), an arm of the Department of Justice, in an onerous position of having to escort unauthorized Mexican workers and legalize them at the border. In 1947, for instance, the INS legalized some 55,000 Mexicans who were in the United States illegally by taking the workers to the U.S.-Mexico border and instructing them to cross the border temporarily, thus making them legally “deported.” These same workers then became aliens eligible to be contracted by the U.S. farmers. The pressure to legalize the workers had come from the Mexican government insisting that it would be illogical to recruit workers from Mexico under contracts when a significant number of undocumented workers were already working in the United States. The farm employers also strongly favored legalizing their undocumented workers because they were able to keep the experienced farmhands and save on the transportation costs for bringing in additional contract labor. As the news about the legalization practice spread, it naturally attracted even greater numbers of workers willing to cross the border illegally. Migrants reasoned that it would be easier to become a bracero by first finding employment illegally in the United States and then becoming legalized by the INS. Consequently, some 87,220 undocumented Mexicans were legalized by 1949, while only 19,625 farmworkers were imported directly from Mexico. However, undocumented persons who were not employed at that time by farmers were arrested and deported, numbering more than 500,000 by the end of 1949.

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