of time, which excluded migratory laborers. Without federal or local relief, many jobless Mexican American families adopted an itinerant life, traveling highways in search of work. Some found temporary housing in U.S. Farm Security Administration (FSA) work camps, where Mexican American farm families finally received medicine, food, and housing. Because the widespread culture of anti-Mexican demonization in the U.S. had resulted in targeted violence against Mexican American communities, however, the FSA was forced to set up separate camps specifically for Mexican Americans in order "to create safe havens from violent attacks" from white Americans. These segregated camps brought together Mexican American families from various communities, which provided them with the opportunity to organize and discuss many of the main issues of the day, including the harsh working conditions within the agricultural sector. The familial connections developed in these camps would serve as a strong factor in farm labor movements later in the century. Yet, while the FSA work camps did provide relief for some Mexican American families, many others had a very different experience in the Depression. In many cities, when a Mexican or Mexican American family applied for aid, they were sent to designated "Mexican Bureaus", where repatriation was discussed. Repatriation For several hundred thousand Mexicans and Mexican Americans, their lives in the United States during the Great Depression were unbearable - they lost their jobs, were largely denied federal or local relief because of their ethnicity, and faced vilification in politics and in the media as "stealing jobs from real Americans". In addition to these factors, state and county officials across the U.S. began to threaten Mexican and Mexican American families who were seeking government aid with deportation. At the same time, the Mexican government introduced a program to entice ethnic Mexicans back to the country with the promise of free land if they returned. All of these factors - overwhelming poverty, the fear of threats from U.S. government officials, and the promises of the Mexican government - led many to leave the U.S. in a period known as the Mexican Repatriation. These repatriations, though often initiated under threats of deportation, were considered "voluntary", and thus few federal records exist to provide numbers of how many Mexicans left the country during the Depression. Nevertheless, INS reported in 1931 that "large proportions" of the nation's Mexican population were leaving the country, and some estimates have concluded that between just