Jessica Xanthomilla
Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, July 21, 2022, p. 16
Members of the Unified Movement of Ex Braceros (MUEB) announced a new day of struggle to demand direct dialogue with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the integration of a negotiating table with federal secretariats, in order to settle historical debt
that you have with them and return the money that was withheld from them while they worked in agricultural fields in the United States between 1942 and 1965.
They called for a mobilization in Mexico City on September 26, which will leave Buenavista for the National Palace.
In a conference, Efraín Arteaga, leader of the MUEB, stated that in September it will be 80 years since the arrival of the first group of Mexican braceros in the United States, and the only thing they no longer have is time
to wait for their work to be recognized and the debt to be paid off.
He recalled that in 2005 a trust was created for former braceros, which included support of 38,000 pesos each or their beneficiaries, but its extinction and the repeal of the law that protected them occurred when he barely had advance of 6.71 percent
.
He stressed that the fight of the MUEB is not for money, but for the return of 10 percent of the salary that was withheld each week in the United States. He referred that in 2008, the Center for Public Finance Studies of the Chamber of Deputies estimated that at that time there were 3 million 233 thousand ex-braceros or family members authorized to claim their resources.
The legal adviser, José Antonio Foronda, asserted that this case becomes relevant after the President’s meeting with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, last week, and the temporary worker model
that was raised. This must have a principle of coherence and moral authority
held.
