A short history of America’s fascination with deportation may help us understand the present situation and correct some of its excesses. Daniel Kanstroom, author of the definitive work on outsiders in America and their deportations from colonial times to the present, said, “In the modern view, it is a lack of citizenship status in a particular nation-state that allows one to be deported from it.”
After the American Revolution, the Alien and Sedition Acts were imposed for the sympathizers of British control, and soon followed the removal of the native Indian populations to reservations. The advent of slavery in the United States occasioned the fugitive slave laws, which in effect contained deportation plans for African Americans who did not wish to be part of the nation and wanted to return to Africa.
Chinese exclusion laws included the type of deportation for workers who had been imported and subsequently exported after their labor was no longer needed.
The post-World War I political deportations against radical citizens sometimes became a means of racial cleansing. Soon after WWI, the new Mexican aliens who came to do agricultural work were subsequently subject to deportations.
The move for exclusion has always been pregnant with the means of deportation.
Deportation for crime has always been a priority, but loyalty to the country has also sometimes been misinterpreted and become an excuse for deportation.
Another set of deportations had to do with labor organizing, which sparked the Palmer raids. In 1919 and 1920, the targets were socialists, anarchists, and communists. Deportation was always an instrument of control for high-profile crime figures, for example, mafia bosses. What followed was a series of ideological exclusions in an attempt at social control.
The relocation and internment of Japanese Americans was another blight on our attempted deportation history. There were also German and Italian aliens who were subjected to arrest and detention.
Forcible removal of Mexicans continued during the Depression, with the deportation of over 1 million people. Following the Depression years and the end of the Bracero Program, a labor agreement with Mexico from 1942 to 1964, that allowed millions of Mexican workers to work temporarily in our agriculture and railroad industries, came the opening of “Operation Wetback.” This transpired when the same needed workers returned, traversing the Rio Grande to harvest the necessary crops.
From 1965 immigration law to the present, our nation has seen crackdowns, but always with discretion. No massive roundups, akin to the present, were carried out, although many people were deported, including many who had just crossed the border into America. Deportation has always been an instrument of social control, but the use of discretion by officials and the use of registry provisions for long-term residents made it somewhat tolerable before the 1970s.
The present situation, although it has precedents, is certainly unique.
Never has the United States attempted to deport 12 to 14 million people at one time. Bishop Brendan Cahill, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, recently said the following: “The thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses should challenge the conscience of every American.” This attempt at intimidation by incarcerating families aims at forcing self-deportation and the loss of assets. Initially, it seemed the aim was fugitive criminals. However, it then became anyone with a serious criminal (felony) record, and now anyone with any type of misdemeanor. Then it seems any infraction of immigration law or regulation is a reason for exclusion, e.g., loss of status, even if that loss was by means of government action in removing provisional statuses, such as Temporary Protected Status and parole.
The United States has a long history of deportations, but our nation has never deported people without some justification. The present situation leaves many questions unanswered. For example, are these aliens a drain on our economy, or is there some other reason they need to be excluded? The appetite in our culture for law-abiding citizenship makes deportation a likely instrument of control and exclusion.
The prospect of massive incarceration in converted warehouses and the deportation of aliens, including entire families, is a terrible cloud over the United States.
In my own experience in refugee situations, when refugees were detained prior to being deported, the families suffered, and most especially the children. Being incarcerated took away the parents’ ability to control their children because the only control was the guards. There will be irreparable damage to families if the plans presently drafted are implemented.
We can do better as a nation, leaving behind prejudices and misconceptions, to find a workable solution for our nation, especially for its low-wage and low-skilled workers and their families.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who served as the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is continuing his research on undocumented migration in the United States.