From Deportees to Coerced Workers: Managing Labor and Migration Within Mexico After the Bracero Program

Abstract In 1971, agents from Mexico's secret intelligence agency began to report that hundreds to thousands of Mexican men recently detained in the United States were being taken every night from Mexicali, Baja California, to Mexico's interior. After being forcibly transported by train or bus for over 30 hours, they were used as coerced, temporary workers in cotton fields in the state of Sinaloa. Transporting them into Mexico's interior accomplished two goals: removing them from the border region, where they could easily recross the border; and sending them to areas in need of labor. This article explores how even after returning to their country of origin, forcibly returned men continued to be viewed as exploitable migrant labor, subject to the demands of agribusiness. Moreover, this offers an example of the covert experimental tactics to manage deportees that both the United States and Mexico attempted during this period of demographic and economic crisis.