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From Chinese Exclusion to Pro-Palestinian Activism: The History of Politically Motivated Deportation

Removal orders targeting student activists echo America’s long past of jailing and expelling immigrants because of their race, or what they say or believe.
by Rick Baldoz via The Conversation on April 30, 2025
George W. Bush delivering a speech.

George W. Bush Lives on in Donald Trump’s Migrant Policies

The “war on terror” led to a sweeping curtailment of immigrants’ rights that swept up green card holders as well as citizens.
by Branko Marcetic via Jacobin on March 27, 2025
A group of Mexican nationals boarding a bus for repatriation to Mexico from the United States.
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Scared Out of the Community

In the 1930s, approximately half a million Mexicans left the United States. Many families had American-born children to whom Mexico was a foreign land.
by Abraham Hoffman via HNN on March 25, 2025
President Eisenhower; The silhouette of a hand pressing into a fence that is blocking the American flag.

The Shaky History of Mass Deportations

‘Operation Wetback’ and ‘Mexican Repatriation’ worked—until they didn’t.
by Benjamin Montoya via The Dispatch on March 5, 2025
Border Patrol agents stand watch along a barrier.

Mass Deportations Are an American Tradition

Past presidents showed that removing millions of illegal aliens is achievable.
by Jacob Grandstaff via The American Conservative on February 17, 2025
ICE officers knock on the door of a residence.

Trump Is Drawing on Cold War–Era Repressive Tactics

A previous, dark period of American history paired ethnic exclusion through mass deportations and ideological exclusion through political repression.
by David Bacon via Jacobin on January 29, 2025
A National Guard stands near a burning building during the Los Angeles uprising of 1992.
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How Disaster Provides Cover for Targeting Immigrants

Efforts to target immigrants amid the 1992 L.A. Uprising point to what deportations might look like under Trump 2.0.
by V. N. Trinh via Made By History on January 27, 2025
Mexican immigrants huddled in a cage during Operation Wetback.

Trump's Deportation Model

A 1950s mass deportation campaign shows that abuse and dehumanization are intrinsic to immigrant detention.
by Ana Raquel Minian via Dissent on October 31, 2024
Migrants, a family of Mexicans, on the road with tire trouble in California in 1936.

Over 1 Million Were Deported to Mexico Nearly 100 Years Ago. Most of Them Were US Citizens.

A new California bill would commemorate 'a dark part of our American history' known as the Mexican 'repatriation' of the 1930s.
by Tyche Hendricks via KQED on August 29, 2024
Some attendees of the Republican National Convention hold "Mass Deportation Now" signs on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Trump’s Massive Deportation Plan Echoes Concentration Camp History

Trump’s language about immigrants “poisoning” the U.S. repeats past rhetoric that led to civilian detention camps, with horrific, tragic results.
by Andrea Pitzer via Scientific American on July 23, 2024
A U.S. Border Patrol officer shows how he found an undocumented Mexican immigrant under the hood of a car along the U.S.-Mexican border in March 1954.

Trump Promises to Deport All Undocumented Immigrants, Resurrecting a 1950s Strategy

Donald Trump says he will authorize a roundup of all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. A 1950s program with similar goals offers lessons.
by Katrina Burgess via The Conversation on May 6, 2024
1825 painting of a white man kissing a Black woman, and a white man whipping a Black man.

Jefferson’s Secret Plan to Whiten Virginia

Jefferson’s system depended on shoring up the bulwarks of race and basing the law on a theory of government that withdrew protection from unfavored groups.
by Timothy Messer-Kruse via Commonplace on April 19, 2023
Black and white image of workmen standing on or outside of a train.

Riding with Du Bois

Railroads—in the Jim Crow South just as in today’s Ukraine—employ physical infrastructure to create racial divisions.
by Manu Karuka via Public Books on October 18, 2022
Cover of "The Deportation Express"

How American Deportation Trains Represent a Century of American Immigration Policy

"The Deportation Express: A History of America through Forced Removal" traces the historical roots and spatial routes of systemic denial, arrest, and removal from the United States.
by Ethan Blue via University Of California Press Blog on April 1, 2022
A view looking up at the Statue of Liberty

Immigration: What We’ve Done, What We Must Do

Once, abolitionists had to imagine a world without slavery. Can we similarly envision a world where migrants are offered justice?
by Allison Brownell Tirres via Public Books on March 2, 2021
Alejandro Mayorkas testifies during confirmation hearing
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The DHS Secretary Could Chart a New Path on Immigration. Will He?

Alejandro Mayorkas and the limits of liberal law-and-order immigration politics.
by Adam Goodman via Made By History on February 2, 2021
Chinese immigrants arrested in New Jersey in November 1934. One is smiling, all look disheveled.

An Explosive Government Report Exposed Family Separations and Other Immigration Horrors—in 1931

Lessons about “dark age cruelty” and the limits of reformism from 90 years ago.
by Noah Lanard via Mother Jones on October 27, 2020

The Deportation Machine

A new book documents the history of three specific mechanisms of expulsion: formal deportation, voluntary departure, and "self-deportation."
by Hilary Goodfriend via NACLA on September 25, 2020

Indian Removal

One of the world's first mass deportations, bureaucratically managed and large-scale, took place on American soil.
by Claudio Saunt via Aeon on April 23, 2020

When America Tried to Deport Its Radicals

A hundred years ago, the Palmer Raids imperilled thousands of immigrants. Then a wily official got in the way.
by Adam Hochschild via The New Yorker on November 4, 2019

Refugee to Detainee: How the U.S. is Deporting Those Seeking a Safe Haven

Since the 1994 Crime Bill signed into law by Bill Clinton, refugees have been deported in droves. And Southeast Asians are being targeted.
by Thi Bui via The Nib on June 13, 2018

The Yakima Terror

Ninety years ago in Washington, a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment resulted in horror for Filipinos.
by Steve Ross via Slate on August 4, 2017

What the Mass Deportation of Immigrants Might Look Like

Operation Wetback didn't merely enforce immigration law-it enforced the idea that American citizens are white.
by Shannon Keating via Slate on November 16, 2016

The Disastrous, Forgotten 1996 Law That Created Today's Immigration Problem

Why the Clinton Administration is to blame for creating a permanent underclass of undocumented immigrants.
by Dara Lind via Vox on April 28, 2016
Migrants holding their shoes, being inspected.

America's Forgotten History Of Mexican-American 'Repatriation'

During the Depression, more than a million people of Mexican descent were deported. Author Francisco Balderrama says that most were American citizens.
via NPR on September 10, 2015

The Bisbee Deportation of 1917

It had not only a pivotal effect in Arizona's own labor history, but also on labor activity throughout the country.
by Sheila Bonnand via University of Arizona Library on January 1, 1997
A row of California National Guardsmen stand atop a top step in riot gear.

Trump’s Deportation Frenzy Echoes the Fugitive Slave Hunts of the 1850s

Trump's crackdown on immigrants bears alarming parallels to the fugitive slave obsessions of the pre-Civil War South.
by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on June 11, 2025
A guard watching prisoners at CECOT prison in El Salvador in 2025.

The Roots of Bukele’s Gulag

Understanding why Trump is using El Salvador to test the limits of illegal deportation requires returning to the US’s long history of outsourcing violence.
by John E. Washington via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2025
A protester holds a "Patriots don't tolerate tyranny" sign. Other signs advocate for the rule of law over kings and tyranny.

The Freedom-Loving Minutemen of Massachusetts Strike Again

Just down the road from Lexington and Concord, American patriots scurried to defend their immigrant neighbors.
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on May 20, 2025
Mexican men in line for work in the Bracero program.
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What the World War II-Era Bracero Program Reveals About U.S. Immigration Debates

Efforts to restrict immigration have long coexisted with — and even reinforced — the nation's economic reliance on Mexican laborers.
via Retro Report on May 9, 2025
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