History of Deportation

Today, immigration law in the United States defines deportation as the “formal removal of an alien from the United States when the alien has been found removable for violating the immigration laws.” Within the complexities of immigration law, such a broad definition has meant that almost any noncitizen (“alien”) can be found deportable at almost any time for nearly any reason. This widely discretionary regime has deep roots in the legal, political, cultural, and statutory traditions of American history. Using scholar Daniel Kanstroom’s work Deportation Nation, this course will study the historical development of the modern deportation regime as both a form of “extended border control and post-entry social control.” Implicating notions of citizenship, belonging, community, scapegoating, criminality, expulsion, exclusion, and banishment, this course will seek to explore not only who was targeted for deportation historically and why but also how those legacies of deportation continue to shape American society and debates over immigration today.