Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. [1] [2] [3] [4] Forced displacement or forced migration of an individual or a group may be caused by deportation, for example ethnic cleansing, and other reasons. A person who has been deported or is under sentence of deportation is called a deportee. [5]
Definitions of deportation vary, with some implicating "transfer beyond State borders" (distinguishing it from forcible transfer), [2] others considering it "the actual implementation of [an expulsion] order in cases where the person concerned does not follow it voluntarily", [3] and others differentiating removal of legal immigrants (expulsion) and illegal immigrants (deportation). [6]
This article approaches deportation in the most general sense, in accordance with International Organization for Migration, [7] which defines expulsion and deportation synonyms in the context of migration, adding:
"The terminology used at the domestic or international level on expulsion and deportation is not uniform but there is a clear tendency to use the term expulsion to refer to the legal order to leave the territory of a State, and removal or deportation to refer to the actual implementation of such order in cases where the person concerned does not follow it voluntarily." [8]
According to the European Court of Human Rights, collective expulsion is any measure compelling non-nationals, as a group, to leave a country, except where such a measure is taken on the basis of a reasonable and objective examination of the particular case of each individual non-national of the group. Mass expulsion may also occur when members of an ethnic group are sent out of a state regardless of nationality. Collective expulsion, or expulsion en masse, is prohibited by several instruments of international law. [9]
Expulsions widely occurred in ancient history, and is well-recorded particularly in ancient Mesopotamia. [10] The mass deportation of conquered nations was common, an example of that being the Israelite Assyrian captivity.[ citation needed ]
Deportation was practiced as a policy toward rebellious people in Achaemenid Empire. The precise legal status of the deportees is unclear; but ill-treatment is not recorded. Instances include: [10]
| Deported people | Deported to | Deporter |
|---|---|---|
| 6,000 Egyptians (including the king Amyrtaeus and many artisans) | Susa | Cambyses II |
| Barcaeans | A village in Bactria | Darius I |
| Paeonians of Thrace | Sardes, Asia Minor (later returned) | Darius I |
| Milesians | Ampé, on the mouth of Tigris near the Persian Gulf | Darius I |
| Carians and Sitacemians | Babylonia | |
| Eretrians | Ardericca in Susiana | Darius I |
| Beotians | Tigris region | |
| Sidonian prisoners of war | Susa and Babylon | Artaxerxes III |
| Jews who supported the Sidonian revolt [11] | Hyrcania | Artaxerxes III |
Unlike in the Achaemenid and Sassanian periods, records of deportation are rare during the Arsacid Parthian period. One notable example was the deportation of the Mards in Charax, near Rhages (Ray) by Phraates I. The 10,000 Roman prisoners of war after the Battle of Carrhae appear to have been deported to Alexandria Margiana (Merv) near the eastern border in 53 BC, who are said to married to local people. It is hypothesized that some of them founded the Chinese city of Li-Jien after becoming soldiers for the Hsiung-nu, but this is doubted. [10]
Hyrcanus II, the Jewish king of Judea (Jerusalem), was settled among the Jews of Babylon in Parthia after being taken as captive by the Parthian-Jewish forces in 40 BC. [12]
Roman POWs in the Antony's Parthian War may have suffered deportation. [10]
Deportation was widely used by the Sasanians, especially during the wars with the Romans.
During Shapur I's reign, the Romans (including Valerian) who were defeated at the Battle of Edessa were deported to Persis. Other destinations were Parthia, Khuzestan, and Asorestan. There were cities which were founded and were populated by Romans prisoners of war, including Shadh-Shapur (Dayr Mikhraq) in Meshan, Bishapur in Persis, Wuzurg-Shapur (Ukbara; Marw-Ḥābūr), and Gundeshapur. Agricultural land were also given to the deportees. These deportations initiated the spread Christianity in the Sassanian empire. In Rēw-Ardashīr (Rishahr; Yarānshahr), Persis, there was a church for the Romans and another one for Carmanians. [10] Their hypothesized decisive role in the spread of Christianity in Persia and their major contribution to Persian economy has been recently criticized by Mosig-Walburg (2010). [13] In the mid-3rd century, Greek-speaking deportees from north-western Syria were settled in Kashkar, Mesopotamia.
After the Arab incursion into Persia during Shapur II's reign, he scattered the defeated Arab tribes by deporting them to other regions. Some were deported to Bahrain and Kirman, possibly to both populate these unattractive regions (due to their climate) and bringing the tribes under control. [10]
In 395 AD 18,000 Roman populations of Sophene, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Cappadocia were captured and deported by the "Huns". the prisoners were freed by the Persians as they reached Persia, and were settled in Slōk (Wēh Ardashīr) and Kōkbā (Kōkhē). The author of the text Liber Calipharum has praised the king Yazdegerd I (399–420) for his treatment of the deportees, who also allowed some to return. [10]
Major deportations occurred during the Anastasian War, including Kavad I's deportation of the populations of Theodosiopolis and Amida to Arrajan (Weh-az-Amid Kavad). [10]
Major deportations occurred during the campaigns of Khosrau I from the Roman cities of Sura, Beroea, Antioch, Apamea, Callinicum, and Batnai in Osrhoene, to Wēh-Antiyōk-Khosrow (also known as Rūmagān; in Arabic: al-Rūmiyya). The city was founded near Ctesiphon especially for them, and Khosrow reportedly "did everything in his power to make the residents want to stay". [10] The number of the deportees is recorded to be 292,000 in another source. [14]
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The Medieval European age was marked with several large religious deportations, namely of Jews and Muslims.
With the beginning of the Age of Discovery, deporting individuals to an overseas colony also became common practice. As early as the 16th century, degredados formed a substantial portion of early colonists in Portuguese empire. [15] From 1717 onward Britain deported around 40,000 [16] : 5 British religious objectors and "criminals" to America before the practice ceased in 1776. [17] Jailers sold the "criminals" to shipping contractors, who then sold them to plantation owners. The "criminals" worked for the plantation owner for the duration of their sentence. [16] : 5 After Britain lost control of the area which became the United States, Australia became the destination for "criminals" deported to British colonies. Britain transported more than 160,000 [16] : 1 British "criminals" to the Australian colonies between 1787 and 1855. [18]
Meanwhile, in Japan during Sakoku, all portuguese and spanish were expelled from the country.
In the 18th century the Tipu Sultan, of Mysore, deported tens of thousands of civilians, from lands he had annexed, to serve as slave labour in other parts of his empire, for example the: Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam. [19]
In the late 19th century the United States of America began designating "desired" and "undesired" immigrants, leading to the birth of illegal immigration and subsequent deportation of immigrants when found in irregular situations. [20] Starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act, the US government has since deported more than 55 million immigrants, the majority of whom came from Latin-American countries. [21]
At the beginning of the 20th century the control of immigration began becoming common practice, with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 in Australia, [22] the Aliens Act 1905 in the United Kingdom [23] and the Continuous journey regulation of 1908 in Canada, [24] elevating the deportation of "illegal" immigrants to a global scale.
In the meantime, deportation of "regular residents" also increased.
In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, more stringent enforcement of immigration laws were ordered by the executive branch of the U.S. government, which led to increased deportation and repatriation to Mexico. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, between 355,000 and 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans were deported or repatriated to Mexico, an estimated 40 to 60% of whom were U.S. citizens – overwhelmingly children. At least 82,000 Mexicans were formally deported between 1929 and 1935 by the government. Voluntary repatriations were more common than deportations. [25] [26] In 1954, the executive branch of the U.S. government implemented Operation Wetback, a program created in response to public hysteria about immigration and immigrants from Mexico. [27] Operation Wetback led to the deportation of nearly 1.3 million Mexicans from the United States. [28] [29]
Nazi policies deported homosexuals, Jews, [30] [31] Poles, and Romani from their established places of residence to Nazi concentration camps or extermination camps set up at a considerable distance from their original residences. During the Holocaust, the Nazis made heavy use of euphemisms, where "deportation" frequently meant the victims were subsequently murdered, as opposed to simply being relocated. [32]
Under orders of Joseph Stalin the Soviet Union carried out a forced transfer of various groups before, during and after World War II (from 1930s up to the 1950s). During the June deportation of 1941, after the occupation of the Baltic countries, Eastern Poland and Moldavia, as was agreed by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in an attempt to subdue the countries for their forced incorporation into the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union deported tens-of-thousands of innocent people to Siberia. [33]
An estimated 120,000 Serbs were deported from the Independent State of Croatia to German-occupied Serbia, and 300,000 fled by 1943. [34]
All countries reserve the right to deport persons without right of abode even those who are longtime residents or possess permanent residency. In general, foreigners who have committed serious crimes, entered the country illegally, overstayed or broken the conditions of their visa, or otherwise lost their legal status to remain in the country may be administratively removed or deported. [35]
Since the 1980s, the world also saw the development of practices of externalization/"offshoring immigrants", currently being used by Australia, Canada, the United States, the European Union. [36] and the United Kingdom. [37] Some of the countries in the Persian Gulf have even used this to deport their own citizens. They have paid the Comoros to give them passports and accept them. [38] [39]
Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, Fritz Julius Kuhn, Lucky Luciano, and Anna Sage were all deported from the United States by being arrested and brought to the federal immigration control station on Ellis Island in New York Harbor and, from there, forcibly removed from the United States on ships.
Many criticize deportations, calling them inhuman, as the questioning the effectiveness of deportations. Some are completely opposed towards any deportations, while others state it is inhuman to take somebody to a foreign land without their consent. [40] [41] [42]
In literature, deportation appears as an overriding theme in the 1935 novel, Strange Passage by Theodore D. Irwin. Films depicting or dealing with fictional cases of deportation are many and varied. Among them are Ellis Island (1936), Exile Express (1939), Five Came Back (1939), Deported (1950), and Gambling House (1951). More recently, Shottas (2002) treated the issue of U.S. deportation to the Caribbean post-1997.
Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration, often imposed by state policy or international authority and most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion but also due to economic development. Banishment or exile is a similar process, but is forcibly applied to individuals and groups. Population transfer differs more than simply technically from individually motivated migration, but at times of war, the act of fleeing from danger or famine often blurs the differences. If a state can preserve the fiction that migrations are the result of innumerable "personal" decisions, the state may be able to claim that it is not to blame for the displacement.
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican heritage. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United States; they make up 53% of the total population of foreign-born Hispanic Americans and 25% of the total foreign-born population. Chicano is a term used by some to describe the unique identity held by Mexican-Americans. The United States is home to the second-largest Mexican community in the world, behind only Mexico. Most Mexican Americans reside in the Southwest, with over 60% of Mexican Americans living in the states of California and Texas.
Wetback is a derogatory term used in the United States to refer to foreign nationals residing in the U.S., most commonly Mexicans. The word mostly targets illegal immigrants in the United States. Generally used as an ethnic slur, the term was originally coined and applied only to Mexicans who entered the U.S. state of Texas from Mexico by crossing the Rio Grande, which is the U.S. border, presumably by swimming or wading across the river and getting wet in the process.
Mass evacuation, forced displacement, expulsion, and deportation of millions of people took place across most countries involved in World War II. The Second World War caused the movement of the largest number of people in the shortest period of time in history. A number of these phenomena were categorised as violations of fundamental human values and norms by the Nuremberg Tribunal after the war ended. The mass movement of people – most of them refugees – had either been caused by the hostilities, or enforced by the former Axis and the Allied powers based on ideologies of race and ethnicity, culminating in the postwar border changes enacted by international settlements. The refugee crisis created across formerly occupied territories in World War II provided the context for much of the new international refugee and global human rights architecture existing today.
Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The program was implemented in June 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century and some who were naturalized citizens who were once native, Operation Wetback was designed to send them to Mexico.
Repatriation is the return of a thing or person to its or their country of origin, respectively. The term may refer to non-human entities, such as converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country, as well as the return of military personnel to their place of origin following a war. It also applies to diplomatic envoys, international officials as well as expatriates and migrants in time of international crisis. For refugees, asylum seekers and illegal migrants, repatriation can mean either voluntary return or deportation.
Mexican American history, or the history of American residents of Mexican descent, largely begins after the annexation of Northern Mexico in 1848, when the nearly 80,000 Mexican citizens of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico became U.S. citizens. Large-scale migration increased the U.S.' Mexican population during the 1910s, as refugees fled the economic devastation and violence of Mexico's high-casualty revolution and civil war. Until the mid-20th century, most Mexican Americans lived within a few hundred miles of the border, although some resettled along rail lines from the Southwest into the Midwest.
The Mexican Repatriation is the common name given to the repatriation, deportation, and expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Estimates of how many were repatriated, deported, or expelled range from 300,000 to 2 million.
Foreign nationals (aliens) can violate US immigration laws by entering the United States unlawfully or lawfully entering but then remaining after the expiration of their visas, parole, or temporary protected status. Illegal immigration has been a matter of intense debate in the United States since the 1980s.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's relationship with Civil Rights was a complicated one. While he was popular among African Americans, Catholics and Jews, he has in retrospect received heavy criticism for the ethnic cleansing of Mexican Americans in the 1930s known as the Mexican Repatriation and his internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. From its creation under the National Housing Act of 1934 signed into law by Roosevelt, official Federal Housing Administration (FHA) property appraisal underwriting standards to qualify for mortgage insurance had a whites-only requirement excluding all racially mixed neighborhoods or white neighborhoods in proximity to black neighborhoods, and the FHA used its official mortgage insurance underwriting policy explicitly to prevent school desegregation.
The Bisbee Deportation was the illegal kidnapping and deportation of about 1,300 striking mine workers, their supporters, and citizen bystanders by 2,000 members of a deputized posse, who arrested them beginning on July 12, 1917, in Bisbee, Arizona. The action was orchestrated by Phelps Dodge, the major mining company in the area, which provided lists of workers and others who were to be arrested to the Cochise County sheriff, Harry C. Wheeler. Those arrested were taken to a local baseball park before being loaded onto cattle cars and deported 200 miles (320 km) to Tres Hermanas in New Mexico. The 16-hour journey was through desert without food and with little water. Once unloaded, the deportees, most without money or transportation, were warned against returning to Bisbee. The US government soon brought in members of the US Army to assist with relocating the deportees to Columbus, New Mexico.
Migration to New Zealand began only very recently in human history - with Polynesian settlement in New Zealand, then uninhabited, about 1250 CE to 1280 CE. European migration provided a major influx, especially following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Subsequent immigrants have come chiefly from the British Isles, but also from continental Europe, the Pacific, the Americas and Asia.
Anti-Mexican sentiment, is prejudice, fear, discrimination, or hatred towards Mexico and people of Mexican descent, Mexican culture and/or Mexican Spanish. It is most commonly found in the United States.
The history of immigration to the United States details the movement of people to the United States from the colonial era to the present day. Throughout U.S. history, the country experienced successive waves of immigration, particularly from Europe and later on from Asia and Latin America. Colonial-era immigrants often repaid the cost of transoceanic transportation by becoming indentured servants in which the new employer paid the ship's captain. In the late 19th century, immigration from China and Japan was restricted. In the 1920s, restrictive immigration quotas were imposed but political refugees had special status. Numerical restrictions ended in 1965. In recent years, the largest numbers of immigrants to the United States have come from Asia and Central America.
Emigration from Mexico is the movement of people from Mexico to other countries. The top destination by far is the United States, by a factor of over 150 to 1 compared to the second most popular destination, Canada.
Poles in Kazakhstan form one portion of the Polish diaspora in the former Soviet Union. Slightly less than half of Kazakhstan's Poles live in the Karaganda region, with another 2,500 in Astana, 1,200 in Almaty, and the rest scattered throughout rural regions.
The Chandler roundup was a law enforcement operation in Chandler, Arizona, in 1997 in which hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants were arrested. In 2004 hearings of the U.S. Senate, it was described as "the only major ethnic profiling incident actually related to immigration".
Chinese immigration to Mexico began during the colonial era and has continued to the present day. However, the largest number of migrants to Mexico have arrived during two waves: the first spanning from the 1880s to the 1940s and another, reinvigorated wave of migrants arriving since the early 21st century. Between 1880 and 1910, during the term of President Porfirio Díaz, the Mexican government was trying to modernize the country, especially in building railroads and developing the sparsely populated northern states. When the government could not attract enough European immigrants, it was decided to allow Chinese migrant workers into the country. At first, small Chinese communities appeared mostly in the north of the country, but by the early 20th century, Chinese communities could be found in many parts of the country, including the capital of Mexico City. By the 1920s, the number of Chinese in the country was about 26,000.
Deportation and removal from the United States occurs when the U.S. government orders a person to leave the country. In fiscal year 2014, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted 315,943 removals. Criteria for deportations are set out in 8 U.S.C. § 1227.
During World War II, 4,058 ethnic Germans along with several hundred other Axis-nationals living in Latin America were deported to the United States and their home countries, often at the behest of the US government. Although the arrest, internment and/or deportation of belligerent country nationals was common practice in both Axis and Allied countries during both World War I and World War II, subsequent US Congressional investigations and reparations during the 1980s and 1990s, especially for Japanese Americans interned, have raised awareness of the injustice of such practices. Unlike Allied civilians held in Nazi concentration camps or those interned by the Japanese, Axis nationals interned in Allied countries did not suffer from systematic starvation and widespread mistreatment by their captors.
Notes
As far as deportation is concerned, there is no general feature that clearly sets it apart from expulsion. Both term basically indicate the same phenomenon. ... The only difference seems to be one of preferential use, expulsion being more an international term while deportation is more used in municipal law. ... One study [discusses this distinction] but immediately adds that in modern practice both terms have become interchangeable.See Jean-Marie Henckaerts (6 July 1995). Mass Expulsion in Modern International Law and Practice. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 5–6. ISBN 90-411-0072-5.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)The Canadian government tried to stop the Indian influx with a continuous passage order-in-council issued 8 Jan. 1908, but it was loosely drafted and successfully challenged in court
Bibliography
Media related to Deportation at Wikimedia Commons