This 1963 industrial film describes how the Great Western Sugar Company hires migrant workers through the Mexican Farm Labor Program Agreement, better known as the Bracero Program. Addressing fellow American sugar beet growers, narrator Lynn Pitcher follows a group of laborers as they cross the border between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso and undergo processing at a Bracero Reception Center. Workers selected by Grand Western then board buses bound for factories in Colorado. Jesse Lerner, a filmmaker and professor at Claremont Colleges, discovered this 16mm film on eBay. It was digitized by Roundabout Entertainment.

On August 4, 1942, the United States and Mexican governments signed the Mexican Farm Labor Program Agreement. Known as the Bracero program, the negotiation sought to legalize and control Mexican migrant workers in the Southwest, guaranteeing laborers a minimum wage and protections from exploitation as well as calling for stricter border security and the return of undocumented immigrants to Mexico. (Texas farmers, however, initially chose not to comply with the accord, hiring farmworkers directly from Mexico and violating mandates regarding compensation and humane treatment.) The agreement continued uninterrupted until 1964. While an estimated two million Mexican nationals legally participated in the program, the accord did not sufficiently accommodate either the number of Mexican migrants wishing to work in the United States or the demand for laborers by American growers. As a result, the program proved ineffective at limiting undocumented immigration into the United States. Between 1944 and 1954, the number of undocumented individuals coming from Mexico rose by 6,000 percent. The dramatic increase in illegal border crossings—totaling an estimated one million by 1954—created a growing number of diplomatic and security issues, as the Mexican government suspended the agreement and ceased the exportation of workers while the violation of labor laws encouraged criminality, disease, and illiteracy. Consequently, in the early 1950s the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) increased its raids. And in 1954, the agency—working alongside the United States Border Patrol and the Mexican government—launched Operation Wetback, a quasi-military project of search and seizure of all undocumented Mexican migrants. ("Wetback" is a derogatory term applied to Mexicans laborers who crossed the Rio Grande.) Fanning out from the lower Rio Grande Valley, the operation focused on the border areas of Texas and Mexico. Apprehended individuals were initially repatriated through either Presidio or El Paso. To discourage reentry of deportees, Mexican officials then moved the workers far into the interior of the country. As the pace of the operation slowed, deportation by sea began, with ferries traveling from Port Isabel, Texas to Veracruz, Mexico. While central Mexico allegedly offered the repatriated workers many labor opportunities, the operation's policy nevertheless frequently resulted in the deportation of Mexicans to unfamiliar places, where they were often stranded without food or employment and unable to contact their families. Furthermore, those apprehended were sometimes left in the desert to face extreme conditions; 88 deported workers died in 112-degree heat in July 1955. The INS claimed that the operation forced as many as 1.3 million migrant workers to leave the country during its first year; however, this number does not equal the official total of apprehensions. (The estimate supposedly accounts for those who chose to leave voluntarily.) Despite its efforts, however, border recruitment of undocumented workers by American farmers continued, resulting in the quick and ultimate decline of the program. Nevertheless, Operation Wetback helped to develop a more permanent, strategic border control presence.

In partnership with: