Mexico’s Bracero Fund Advances

MEXICO CITY — Congress’ lower house Thursday approved a $27-million fund for former migrant farmworkers who labored in the United States, many of whom had funds deducted from their paychecks for pension and savings plans they never received.

Activists say about 150,000 former farmworkers and their heirs in Mexico and the United States have a right to the government money that will be placed in the fund.

The Chamber of Deputies voted to begin payouts within two months, after a reliable list of those eligible has been drawn up and the bill is approved by the Senate and published in the congressional register.

The fund could be increased to as much as $36 million. It was unclear how many former workers would have a claim to the money.

About 2.5 million Mexicans toiled in the U.S. between 1942 and the mid-1960s as part of the bracero guest-worker program.

From 1942 to 1949, about 10% of the workers’ paychecks was withheld for savings and pension funds that were supposed to be available to them when they returned to Mexico, as an incentive for migrants to return home.

They never got the money. The missing funds, which could range in value in today’s dollars from $500 million to $1 billion, is believed to have disappeared somewhere between U.S. and Mexican banks.

Some activists say that up to 300,000 workers may have been defrauded, but Mexican officials suggest that it may involve as few as 15,000.

Lawmakers emphasized that the fund was not intended to repay, dollar for dollar, the missing money, but was a broader social welfare program for the former farmworkers.