by Alyssah Hall
Overview: Mapping Deportations, created by three scholars from UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy and the Million Dollar Hoods Project, traces the racist origins of immigration laws and policies in the United States since 1895. The website shows that over 96% of deportation orders have been issued to people from predominantly non-white countries, and that Mexico and Central America have been in the lead with the highest number of deportation orders continuously since 1915. The researchers argue that racism has been baked into the immigration system since the antebellum period and has been reinvented since 1965.
A new map developed by scholars at UCLA called Mapping Deportations, traces the history of deportation orders in the United States, dating back to 1895. Their research, “Mapping deportations: Unmasking the history of racism in U.S. immigration reinforcement,” uncovers patterns of deportation, who it affects the most, and gives information on the origins and realities of the U.S. deportation policy.
During a media briefing hosted by nonprofit news agency American Community Media, researchers Kelly Lytle Hernández, Mariah Tso, and Ahilan Arulanantham from UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy and the Million Dollar Hoods Project reviewed the map’s features.
Hernández, Tso, and Arulanantham decided to begin map deportations research because they wanted to develop a website that would trace the racist origins of a multitude of immigration laws and policies that remain in effect today during the Trump administration and their heavy push for deportation.
“There have been well over eight million deportation orders since 1895, and as we know, that number is increasing every day. The pattern is that over 96% of deportation orders have been issued to people from predominantly non white countries. And this isn’t random, it’s a reflection of policies steeped in racism, and the quotes of lawmakers and leaders throughout history reveal even more,” Tso said.
The earliest year that the researchers have deportation order data by country or region is 1895, and each dot on their map represents “deportation orders.” They chose to use the term deportation order because it refers to the event, not a unique individual. The map was created with publicly available data from federal authorities that map immigration statistics.
The map is grouped into nine geographic regions, due to the data varying over 120 years. The map shows that Mexico and Central America have been in the lead with the highest number of deportation orders continuously since 1915.
“I was struck by how stark some of the race discrimination was in immigration policy, even during the Biden administration… one example, the application of the title 42 program, excluding people from the country on the basis of Covid was applied very harshly to Haitians and to other people from Central America. And then, just like that, virtually all Ukrainians were exempt from the program, and they were allowed to come in,” Arulanantham shared.
“Similarly, the Biden administration was defending the illegal re entry, the criminal prohibition on illegal re entry… It was passed in 1929 at the height of the of the eugenic movement, and its role in immigration policy is a very clear law that you cannot, the government is not allowed to enforce laws that are motivated by race discrimination, and yet the Biden administration was defending these,” Arulanantham continued.
Hernández explained that when building the map, it was clear to the team that to be able to interpret the data on the map, they also needed to know the additional factors for “what’s at play” in the numbers. Their website also gives historical background and a timeline for folks to understand at what point in time there were certain laws that targeted certain communities and how that coagulated with the deportation data.
“What we’re trying to show is how racism was baked into the immigration system over time, dating all the way back to the antebellum period and is yet to be fully purged. And, in fact, has been reinvented in some ways since 1965,” Hernández said.
“We argue that since 1991, the United States federal government has built the largest immigrant detention and deportation system in the world, conducting more than seven million deportations during this time period, issuing more than 25 million so-called voluntary departure orders during this time period,” Hernández continued.
Research found that racial disparities among deportations grew during this time period. The growth is largely attributed to the tightening relationship between the U.S. criminal legal system and the immigration system, which effectively made mass deportation a component of mass incarceration, Hernández explained.
The Mapping Deportations website has many features including a “maps and data tab” with a data library of 15 different visualizations, including deportations by year; mapping the “white man’s” republic; the whites-only immigration regime; “voluntary” departures; Black immigration: 1899-1961; and Title 42 expulsions.
