Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History
By Daniel Kastroom

I always wonder if people who know me think that I am paranoid when I talk about deportation. I’ve often justified the extra precautions I take while driving, while participating in protests, while partying, while doing anything that has the possibility of attracting police attention, by telling people about how even breaking the most mundane laws can potentially trigger deportation proceedings for immigrants. With the number of people being deported hitting new highs under the current administration and with implementation of new programs like “Secure Communities” (as disingenuous of an appellation if there ever was one), I know that my fears are not baseless. However, for someone who is not an immigrant, it can be easy to underestimate the extent and the depth of the deportation dragnet. For these folks, I recommend that they read Deportation Nation.

Deportation Nation is essentially a legal history of the current deportation regime. Even though it isn’t particularly heavy on legal terminology, it does provide oftentimes lengthy descriptions of case law and administrative proceedings, thus making for a tedious read at times. Overall, however, the book’s argument that deportation is a “powerful tool of discretionary social control, a key feature of the national security state, and a most tangible component of the recurrent episodes of xenophobia that have bedeviled our nation of immigrants” (5) is extremely compelling and fairly well illustrated.

Kastroom examines the roots of deportation in colonial laws that controlled movements of the poor, expulsion of people from their territories including Indian removal and the “Acadian Deportation,” fugitive slave laws, and the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s to trace the rise of Congressional extra-Constitutional plenary power over immigration and deportation. I actually had to look at a dictionary to fully understand what “plenary  power” means. Here’s what “plenary” means according to one dictionary: “full; complete; entire; absolute; unqualified: plenary powers.” In relation to deportation and immigration law, what that means is that Congress has “inherent” sovereign powers to control immigration and deportation. I.e. Congress can do what it sees fit with immigrants, who it lets in, who it throws out, all with practically no judicial review. Immigrants essentially possess practically no constitutional rights that Congress is bound to respect and can be deported for any reason that Congress sees fit (in the past these reasons have included belonging to a certain race, belonging to the Communist Party, holding certain ideas, for committing crimes, or for simply being present in the country when the government no longer wishes so. Currently, these reasons can be applied retroactively. I.e. if you were held guilty of shoplifting twenty years ago, you can still be deported today regardless of how you have lived your life since then). This sounds draconian by any measure, and completely antithetical to any notions of justice, freedom, equality, or fairness that this country prides itself on, but it’s true. And this is why I am not being paranoid when I talk about deportation. As an immigrant, in the government’s eyes, I am on “probation;” a “guest” who can be thrown out at the government’s discretion. Ideally, they will not deport someone simply because they don’t like their face, but with the lack of appropriate judicial review for most deportation proceedings, they technically can if they want to.

As Kastroom looks at various historical incidents of mass deportation, including deportation of Chinese immigrants, deportation of labor leaders, anarchists and people who opposed the government for any reason, deportation of Mexican immigrants during the  Great Depression and during Operation Wetback, the internment of Japanese Americans, etc. he argues that deportation law has historically functioned as a form of “post-entry social control” law which the government has used to limit the movement, thoughts, and activities of immigrants.

I have grossly over-simplified Kastroom’s arguments here, but I think it is incredibly important that more people understand the deportation system and become aware of it: Naturalized citizens are not exempt – there have been countless cases of denaturalization and deportation. It technically isn’t a big step for the government to begin targeting U.S.-born citizens with tactics it had formally reserved only for immigrants (one can see this in the ongoing high-profile case of torture of a U.S.-born citizen). As Kastroom argues throughout the book, it is important that we choose the country’s “best principles to guide us” (246) to overcome its worst tendencies. Unfortunately, I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.