What prompted agribusiness owners int he late 1880s and early 1900s to recruit mexican laborers to come work on farms in the united states? the passage of the southern homestead act, which provided land to freed slaves, creating a need for more laborers. the passage of the illegal immigration reform prevented laborers from the caribbean immigration to the united states, so plantation owners needed a new source of labor. the implementation of immigration policies, such as the chinese exclusion act of 1882, which ended legal asian labor migration to the united states. a massive drought which required the replanting of crops on thousands of farms?