812.504 Mexico/465
The Acting Director of the Bureau of Placement of the War Manpower Commission (Motley) to the Chief of the Division of Mexican Affairs (McGurk)
Dear Mr. McGurk: As you know, the Mexican Government has approved a ceiling of 40,000 Mexican Nationals who may leave Mexico to engage in railroad employment in the United States and which ceiling may be maintained by the recruitment of replacements for those workers who return to Mexico.
Although the 40,000 workers have been allocated to the railroads the number of Mexicans actually engaged in such employment will always be less than that of the approved ceiling. Workers who are missing from their contract employment and whom the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service has not reported as repatriated are included in the approved ceiling. Also a considerable amount of time elapses from the time workers complete their contracts until replacements report for work, which is necessitated by (1) travel of workers to the border, (2) lists of repatriates made at border points at weekly intervals and forwarded to the Railroad Retirement Boards, (3) identification by Railroad Retirement Board of repatriates by railroads and forwarding such reports to the Immigration Service, (4) notification of Immigration officials in Mexico of number of replacements which can be admitted, (5) arrangement by Railroad Retirement Board of recruitment schedule for replacements, (6) travel of employer representatives to Mexico, (7) recruitment of replacements, and (8) transportation of replacements to the place of employment in the United States. When workers return to Mexico before their contracts have expired, such numbers may be so small for a given railroad that it may be months before a large enough number can be built up to justify recruitment, and when this is multiplied by the twenty-nine railroads participating in this program, the railroads lose the services of an appreciable number of workers.
In order that the railroads may be assured of the services of at least 40,000 Mexican contract workers at all times it is requested that the Mexican Government be asked to approve a ceiling of 50,000 of their Nationals who may be in the United States at any one time for railroad employment.8
Very truly yours,
- A copy of this letter was forwarded to Ambassador Messersmith in instruction 5732, May 26, with the request that he present the Commission’s request to the Mexican Government “when and if circumstances indicate that the request might receive favorable consideration.” (811.504 Mexico/465)↩