Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Latino immigrant men and the deportation crisis: A gendered racial removal program

Latino Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Cite this article

Abstract

This article reviews how US deportations ballooned between 1997 and 2012, and underscores how these deportations disproportionately targeted Latino working class men. Building on Mae Ngai’s (2004) concept of racial removal, we describe this recent mass deportation as a gendered racial removal program. Drawing from secondary sources, surveys conducted in Mexico, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security published statistics, and interviews with deportees conducted by the first author in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Jamaica, we argue that: (1) deportations have taken on a new course in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the wake of the global economic crisis – involving a shift towards interior enforcement; (2) deportation has become a gendered and racial removal project of the state; and (3) deportations will have lasting consequences with gendered and raced effects here in the United States. We begin by examining the mechanisms of the new deportation regime, showing how it functions, and then examine the legislation and administrative decisions that make it possible. Next, we show the concentration of deportations by nation and gender. Finally, we discuss the causes of this gendered racial removal program, which include the male joblessness crisis since the Great Recession, the War on Terror, and the continued criminalization of Black and Latino men by police authorities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4

Notes

  1. In 2009 and 2010, the first author conducted 150 semi-structured interviews with deportees in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Brazil, in addition to participant observation at airports where deportees arrive and interviews with government officials and NGOs in the four countries. Those interviews were part of a larger project focusing on the consequences of mass deportation.

  2. The average number of “removals” between 1900 and 1990 was about 18,000. These figures did not include the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who were repatriated in the 1930s, nor the million Mexicans who were returned during “Operation Wetback” in 1954. The reason for this is that, in the 1930s, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans departed “voluntarily” and thus were not recorded as removals. In 1954, the Border Patrol recorded 1 million “returns” as Operation Wetback was concentrated along border towns. See Lytle Hernandez (2010) for a discussion of Operation Wetback and Balderrama (1982) for a discussion of the mass repatriation of Mexicans and their children in the 1930s.

  3. As of 1 April 1997, the government reclassified all exclusion and deportations procedures as “Removal proceedings,” but in this paper we use the terms deportation and removal interchangeably. 2012 figure from: www.ice.gov/removal-statistics/.

  4. FY 2011 Budget Summary and Background Information. Department of Education. www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget11/summary/11summary.pdf and FY 2011 Budget. Department of Justice. www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/February/10-ag-109.html, accessed 20 February 2012.

  5. The Bush administration also conducted several highly visible immigration raids. These immigration raids generated more fear than actual immigration enforcement, as they accounted for a very small percentage of actual deportations – less than 1 per cent. See Golash-Boza (2012) for an analysis of these raids.

  6. DHS defines returns in the following manner: “In some cases, apprehended aliens may be offered the opportunity to return to their home countries without being placed in immigration proceedings. This procedure is common with non-criminal aliens who are apprehended at the border. Aliens agree that their entry was illegal, waive their right to a hearing, remain in custody and are returned under supervision. Return is also available for non-criminal aliens who are deemed inadmissible at ports of entry. In addition, some aliens apprehended within the United States agree to voluntarily depart and pay the expense of departing. These departures may be granted by an immigration judge or, in some circumstances, by a Detention and Removal Operations field office director. In certain instances, aliens who have agreed to a return may be legally admitted in the future without penalty.” www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/enforcement_ar_2009.pdf.

  7. In the Child’s Best Interest? The consequences of losing a lawful immigrant parent to deportation www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Human_Rights_report.pdf p. 4, accessed 1 February 2013.

  8. The Criminal Alien Program is the largest of the four programs. In FY 2011, ICE issued 212,744 charging documents for deportation through the CAP. In that same year, 78,246 people were removed through Secure Communities, a program where the FBI automatically sends the fingerprints of people arrested to DHS to check against its immigration databases. 287(g) allows state and local law enforcement agencies to act as immigration law enforcement agents within their jurisdictions. In 2010, 26,871 people were removed through 287(g). Only about 1500 were removed through NFOP. Much of the attention on Police/ICE cooperation has been on Secure Communities and 287(g), yet the vast majority of removals are occurring through the Criminal Alien Program. (Rosenblum and Kandel, 2012).

  9. “Walter” is a pseudonym. His story, like the other stories related in this article, comes from research the first author conducted with people who have been deported from the United States. The first author interviewed 150 deportees between May 2009 and August 2010 in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Jamaica.

  10. Most receiving countries do not distinguish removals from returns, which affects this estimate. A non-citizen who attempts to enter the United States or is found within the United States can either be (1) returned without a hearing; (2) subject to expedited removal; or (3) formally deported. The DHS distinguishes between these three types of removal, but receiving countries often do not. In DHS reports, only those subjected to expedited removal or formal removal count as deportees. DHS designates the remaining as “aliens returned.” The estimates from Mexico include repatriates formally removed and those returned without a formal order of removal.

  11. EMIF refers to the Encuesta Sobre Migraciones en las Fronteras Norte y Sur de Mexico.

  12. La situación demográfica de México. Consejo Nacional de Población. http://www.conapo.gob.mx/publicaciones/sdm/sdm2011/SDM2011.pdf, p. 234, accessed 6 February 2012.

  13. Detention refers to immigration detention – where immigrants await immigration hearings and deportation. Many more children are in foster care because their parents are in prison on criminal charges.

References

  • Applied Research Center. 2011. Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System, http://www.arc.org/shatteredfamilies, accessed 24 July 2013.

  • Armenta, A . 2012. From Sheriff’s Deputies to Immigration Officers: Screening Immigrant Status in a Tennessee Jail. Law & Policy 34 (2): 191–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arnold, C . 2007. Racial Profiling in Immigration Enforcement: State and Local Agreements to Enforce Federal Immigration Law. Arizona Law Review 49 (1): 113–142.

    Google Scholar 

  • Balderamma, F . 1982. In Defense of La Raza: The Los Angeles Mexican Consulate and the Mexican Community 1929–1936. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brotherton, D.C. and L. Barrios . 2011. Banished to the Homeland: Dominican Deportees and Their Stories of Exile. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition. http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco2003.htm, accessed 20 February 2012.

  • Chan, S., ed. 1991. Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America 1882–1943. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chavez, L . 2004. A Glass Half Empty: Latina Reproduction and Public Discourse. Human Organization 63 (2): 173–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chavez, L . 2008. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens and the Nation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, M . 2012. The “Local” Migration State: The Site-specific Devolution of Immigration Enforcement in the U.S. South. Law & Policy 34 (2): 159–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coutin, S . 2000. Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants Struggling for U.S. Residency. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Genova, N . 2002. Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 419–447.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donato, K.M. and A. Armenta . 2011. What We Know About Unauthorized Migration. Annual Review of Sociology 37 (1): 529–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowling, J.A. and J.X. Inda . 2012. Governing Immigration through Crime: A Reader. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dreby, J . 2012. The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Families. Journal of Marriage and Family 74 (4): 829–845.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fix, M. and J.S. Passel . 1994. Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight. The Urban Institute Online at: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/305184_immigration_immigrants.pdf, accessed 20 January 2012.

  • Fujiwara, L . 2008. Mothers without Citizenship: Asian Immigrant Families and the Consequences of Welfare Reform. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glenn, E.N . 1986. Issie, Nisei, Warbride. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Golash-Boza, T . 2012. Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions, and Deportations in Post-9/11 America. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gonzalez, R.M . 1983. Chicanas and Mexican Immigrant Families 1920–1940: Women’s Subordination and Family Exploitation. In Decades of Discontent: The Women’s Movement 1920–1940, eds. L. Scharf and J.M. Jensen, 59–83. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gutierrez, E.R . 2008. Fertile Matters: The Politics of Mexican Origin Women’s Reproduction. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hagan, J., K. Eschbach and N. Rodriguez . 2008. U.S. Deportation Policy, Family Separation, and Circular Migration. International Migration Review 42 (1): 64–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hagan, J.M., N. Rodriguez and B. Castro . 2011. Social Effects of Mass Deportations by the United States Government, 2000–2010. Ethnic and Racial Studies 34 (8): 1374–1391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Headley, B., M.D. Gordon and A. MacIntosh . 2005. Deported: Entry and Exit Findings. Jamaicans Returned Home from the U.S. between 1997 and 2003. Kingston, Jamaica: Stephenson Litho Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez, D . 2008. Pursuant to Deportation: Latinas/os and Immigrant Detention. Latino Studies 6 (1–2): 35–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez, K.L . 2010. Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hing, B.O . 2003. Defining America Through Immigration Policy. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman, A . 1974. Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures 1929–1939. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hondagneu-Sotelo, P . 1994. Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hondagneu-Sotelo, P . 1995. Women and Children First: New Directions in Anti-immigrant Politics. Socialist Review 25 (1): 169–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Immigration Enforcement Actions. 2010. Department of Homeland Security. Office of Immigration Statistics. Online at: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/enforcement-ar-2010.pdf, accessed 6 February 2012.

  • Immigration Policy Center. 2011. Secure Communities: A Fact Sheet. www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/secure-communities-fact-sheet, accessed 6 January 2012.

  • Johnson, K . 2003. The Case for African American and Latina/o Cooperation in Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement. Florida Law Review 55: 343–365.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kandel, W . 2012. “Interior Immigration Enforcement: Programs Targeting Criminal Aliens” 20 December 2012 Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R42057.pdf, accessed 1 January 2013.

  • Kanstroom, D . 2012. Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kasinitz, P., J.H. Mollenkopf, M.C. Waters and J. Holdaway . 2008. Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerwin, D. and S.Y.-Y. Lin . 2009. Immigrant Detention: Can ICE Meet Its Legal Imperatives and Case Management Responsibilities? Migration Policy Institute. September. Online at: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/detentionreportSept1009.pdf, accessed 28 September 2012.

  • King, R.D., M. Massoglia and C. Uggen . 2012. Employment and Exile: U.S. Criminal Deportations, 1908–2005. American Journal of Sociology 117 (6): 1786–1825.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kretsedemas, P . 2012. The Immigration Crucible: Transforming Race, Nation, and the Limits of the Law. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lacayo, A.E . 2010. The Impact of Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act on the Latino Community. National Council of La Raza. Online at: http://www.nclr.org/images/uploads/publications/287gReportFinal.pdf.

  • Lundman, R.J. and R.L. Kaufman . 2003. Driving while Black: Effects of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender on Citizen’s Self-reports of Traffic Stops and Police Actions. Criminology 41 (1): 195–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marchevsky, A. and J. Theoharis . 2006. Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-wage Jobs, and the Future of Welfare Reform. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Menjivar, C. and L.J. Abrego . 2012. Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants. American Journal of Sociology 115 (5): 1380–1421.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moloney, D . 2012. National Insecurities: Immigrants and U.S. Deportation Policy since 1882. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ngai, M . 2004. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Park, L.S . 2011. Entitled to Nothing: The Struggle for Immigrant Health Care in the Age of Welfare Reform. New York: New York University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Quereshi, A . 2010. 287(g) and Women: The Family Values of Local Enforcement. Wisconsin Journal of Law Gender and Society 25 (2): 261–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramirez, H. and E. Flores . 2011. Latino Masculinities in the Post-9/11 Era. In Gender through the Prism of Difference, eds. M. Baca Zinn, P. Hondagneu-Sotelo and M.A. Messner, 4th edn., 259–270. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rios, V . 2011. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosas, A.E . 2011. Breaking the Silence: Mexican Children and Women’s Confrontation of Bracero Family Separation, 1942–1964. Gender & History 23 (2): 382–400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosas, G . 2006. The Managed Violences of the Borderlands: Treacherous Geographies, Policeability, and the Politics of Race. Latino Studies 4 (4): 401–418.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenblum, M. and W. Kandel . 2012. “Interior Immigration Enforcement: Programs Targeting Criminal Aliens” 20 December 2012 Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R42057.pdf, accessed 1 January 2013.

  • Siulc, N . 2009. Unwelcome Citizens, Criminalized Migrants, and the Quest for Freedom: Deportees in the Dominican Republic. Unpublished Dissertation. Anthropology. New York University.

  • Stumpf, J . 2006. The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign Power. American University Law Review 56 (2): 367–419.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 2009. Office of Immigration Statistics Policy Directorate Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2008. Online at: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/enforcement_ar_08.pdf, accessed 28 September 2012.

  • U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 2012. U.S. ICE Deportation of Parents of U.S.-born Citizens: Fiscal Year 2011 Report to Congress. 26 March. Online at: http://www.lirs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/ICE-DEPORT-OF-PARENTS-OF-US-CIT-FY-2011.pdf, accessed 28 September 2012.

  • U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 2012. FY 2011 Budget in Brief. Online at: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/budget_bib_fy2011.pdf, accessed 16 February 2012.

  • Wacquant, L . 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • WFMY News. 2012. DOJ: Alamance Sheriff Shows Pattern Of Discrimination Against Latinos. 18 September, http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/article/246062/57/DOJ-Alamance-Sheriff-Shows-Pattern-Of-Bias-Against-Latinos, accessed 1 January 2013.

  • Young, J . 1999. The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime and Difference in Late Modernity. London: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zilberg, E . 2004. Fools Banished from the Kingdom: Remapping Geographies of Gang Violence between the Americas (Los Angeles and San Salvador). American Quarterly 56 (3): 759–779.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers, legal scholars Bill Ong Hing and Niels Frenzen, the Latino Studies editors Suzanne Oboler and Lourdes Torres, Helen Marrow for the Census data on non-citizens, and Sybil Adams for creating the map.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Merced

    Tanya Golash-Boza

  2. University of Southern California,

    Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

Authors
  1. Tanya Golash-Boza
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Golash-Boza, T., Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. Latino immigrant men and the deportation crisis: A gendered racial removal program. Lat Stud 11, 271–292 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2013.14

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2013.14

Keywords

search

Navigation