Braceros Workers Class Action
Please visit
www.casobracero.com to get information about the
Braceros settlement and how you can claim your share of the settlement money.
In 2001, contract workers known as "Braceros," Spanish for "strong arms," filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and others who came from Mexico to the United States pursuant to bilateral agreements from 1942 through 1946 to aid American farms and industries hurt by employee shortages.
The agreements provided that ten percent of the Braceros' wages would be withheld from them and transferred via United States and Mexican banks to savings accounts for each Bracero. The Braceros were never reimbursed for the portion of their wages placed in the forced savings accounts.
In February 2009, the Court granted final approval to a settlement of the case. Under the settlement, the Mexican government will provide a payment to Braceros, or their surviving spouses or children, in the amount of approximately $3,500 (USD).
In approving the settlement on February 23, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer stated,
"I've never seen such litigation in eleven years on the bench that was more difficult than this one. It was enormously challenging. ... It had all sorts of issues ... that complicated it: foreign law, constitutional law, contract law, [and] statute of limitations. ... Notwithstanding all of these issues that kept surfacing ... over the years, the plaintiffs persisted. I actually expected, to tell you the truth, at some point that the plaintiffs would just give up because it was so hard, but they never did. They never did. And, in fact, they achieved a settlement of the case, which I find remarkable under all of these circumstances."
Further Information for Class Members
For more information please visit the Caso Bracero web site at www.casobracero.com, call the toll-free Caso Bracero Hotline at 1-877-436-9359, or send a letter to Caso Bracero, P.O. Box 641610, Chicago, Illinois, 60664-1610. The deadline for delivery of application forms to Mexican government offices in the United States was January 5, 2009.
About Lieff Cabraser
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP is a sixty-plus attorney law firm that has represented plaintiffs nationwide since 1972. We have offices in San Francisco, New York and Nashville. We represent plaintiffs in class and group actions and in individual lawsuits in cases involving substantial losses. For the last seven years, The National Law Journal has selected Lieff Cabraser as one of the top plaintiffs' law firms in the nation.
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