The Deportation Machine

March 15, 2020
Exacting study of the historical roots of U.S. deportation policies. As Goodman observes, though "the deportation machine has been running on all cylinders in recent years...it did not just come into being during the presidency of Donald J. Trump," whose policies are discussed in a chilling epilogue. The author's lean narrative contains six long chapters, examining the many political events that have caused fluctuating severity and approaches. Goodman illuminates surprising historical aspects--e.g., how enforcement began as racist local efforts aimed at Chinese and Mexican laborers. With increased central bureaucracy in the 1920s, "authorities placed an even greater emphasis on controlling the nation's borders." During the Depression, they were "increasingly aware of the power of scare tactics to exert control over noncitizens, and especially Mexicans." Later, the Bracero agricultural workers who'd been welcomed during the war were scapegoated, culminating in the aggressive "Operation Wetback." In the mid-20th century, writes the author, "voluntary departure and anti-immigrant fear campaigns became the dominant mechanisms of expulsion." With so-called voluntary departures, "there were no bureaucratic hoops to jump through." A lack of transparency about official practices has always been a problem. Goodman notes that "immigration historians know little about how authorities have forcibly removed people, and even less about the US government contracting private companies to effect expulsions." He explores how return migration provided profitability to steamship companies followed by private aviation and even Greyhound buses; even in the 1950s, conditions aboard ships were so vile that detainees mutinied. The author also argues that manufactured border crises, abetted by sensationalist media, caused expulsion rates to begin climbing during the 1960s, and he notes that "INS also ramped up neighborhood and workplace raids," a harbinger of today's militarized borders and mass-incarceration approach. Goodman's writing can be dry, but he confidently handles arcane historical details and a volatile subject. A well-researched historical discussion with clear current relevance. (b/w tables, graphs, photos)

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