Mass Deportation: Racialized State Repression in a Time of Crisis

• In Event: 156 - Regular Session. Race and Ethnicity in the Capitalist World-System I

Abstract

In the spring of 2014, President Obama’s administration reached a landmark of over 2 million deportations - more in under six years than the sum total of all deportations prior to 1997. Mass deportation has not affected all immigrants equally: the vast majority of deportees are Latin American and Caribbean men. Today, nearly 90 percent of deportees are men, and over 97 percent are Latin American or Caribbean. The deportation turn has coincided with the current crisis in global capitalism. The 1970s crisis is the reason many deportees left their countries of origin in the first place. The current crisis has created a temporary stall in migration flows from Latin America to the United States alongside a rise in deportations from the United States to Latin America. Mass deportation has emerged in this particular historical moment for three reasons: 1) the slowdown in the economy created a reduced need for immigrant labor; 2) in hard times, the state benefits from a show of force (Harvey 2005; Robinson 2014); and, 3) deportees benefit certain sectors in countries that receive deportees. Mass deportation is best understood as an instance of racialized state repression directed towards a minority group during an economic crisis. Mass deportation is an example of state repression, and this intense form of repression is more acceptable to the public insofar as it is directed at racially subordinated groups.

Author

• Tanya Maria Golash-Boza, University of California-Merced