Hassanein, 2024.
The Beets of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation and Exploitation of Betabeleros in the 1930s
Implications Today
“Immigrants make up about two-thirds of the nation’s crop farmworkers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and roughly 2 in 5 of them are not legally authorized to work in the United States.”
Hassanein, 2024
The repatriation of betabelaros in the 1930s carries incredible significance today, when the government is currently conducting a mass deportation scheme that echoes the Mexican Repatriation. It is more important than ever that we understand the rights and responsibilities that immigrant laborers and the entities that govern them have.
Effects of Mass Deportation
“Deporting undocumented workers would wreak havoc on industry, exacerbating labor shortages and triggering additional job losses for American workers. For example, if a shortage of construction workers prevents a house from getting built, the businesses that would be furnishing that house— from kitchen appliances to bedframes—lose business, too. Without field workers to pick crops, truckers have no goods to transport, and farmers have no need to buy new farm equipment…When at least 400,000 Mexicans left the United States early in the Great Depression, often due to government coercion, the employment and wages of U.S.-born workers decreased slightly, with workers without a college degree affected most acutely.”
American Immigration Council, 2024
"Florida has been working for years to crack down on employers that hire undocumented immigrants. But that presented a problem for businesses in the state that are desperate for workers to fill low-wage and often undesirable jobs. Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state legislature have a potential solution: children."
Valinsky, 2025
"As Florida officials enable Trump's mass deportation policies, lawmakers in the state are looking to children to take on some of the jobs that have typically been done by immigrants."
Jones, 2025
Do workers who are brought into a country have the responsibility to benefit that country’s economy? Should all workers, immigrant or citizen, have laborer’s rights? What responsibility does the government have to deportees and to immigrant workers? Different people answer these questions variedly. However, despite how these questions may be answered, it is indesputable that both immigrants and citizens deserve legal process.
"...an alien who has entered the country, and has become subject in all respects to its jurisdiction, and a part of its population, although illegally here, [cannot] be arrested and deported without giving such alien an opportunity, appropriate to the case, to be heard upon the questions involving his right to be and remain in the United States...it is not competent for the Secretary of the Treasury or any executive officer...arbitrarily to cause an alien, who has entered the country, and has become subject in all respects to its jurisdiction, and a part of its population, although alleged to be illegally here, to be taken into custody and deported without giving him all opportunity to be heard upon the questions involving his right to be and remain in the United States. No such arbitrary power can exist where the principles involved in due process of law are recognized."
Yamataya v. Fisher, 189 U.S. 86 (1903)
"Congress has ample power to determine whom we will admit to our shores and by what means it will effectuate its exclusion policy. The only limitation is that it may not do so by authorizing United States officers to take without due process of law the life, the liberty or the property of an alien who has come within our jurisdiction; and that means he must meet a fair hearing with fair notice of the charges."
Shaughnessy v. ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206 (1953)
These court cases establish that a sovereign state both has the right to deport non-citizen criminals and is responsible for following the deportation procedure, conducting its deportations fairly, and allowing deportees legal representation. When 60% of the people deported are citizens, most of whom are unlikely to have lawyers, due process is not being upheld (Balderrama and Rodríguez, 2006).
"...how voluntary is it if you have deportation raids by the federal government during the Hoover administration and people are disappearing on the streets? How voluntary is it if you have county agents knocking on people's doors telling people oh, you would be better off in Mexico and here are your train tickets? You should be ready to go in two weeks."
Balderrama, 2015
Often, the deportations were "voluntary", which allowed them to sidestep the deportation system that would have protected the immigrants' rights.
"...aliens receive constitutional protections when they have come within the territory of the United States and developed substantial connections with this country."
United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 429 U.S. 259 (1990)
"Once an alien enters the country, the legal circumstance changes, for the Due Process Clause applies to all persons within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent."
Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001)
The debate about non-citizens and the rights they possess is still not solidified in this century. Although these cases explicitly state that non-citizens, no matter if they are legal or illegal, migratory or permanent, have due process when they are in the country and receive constitutional protections when they establish substantial connections (such as work) in the country, these rights are still violated today.
Several other deportation schemes followed the Mexican Repatriation. We know that the government has not learned from this event. Historians, however, can learn from it. It is the right and responsibility of historians to educate the public about the Mexican Repatriation so that it is never repeated.