Abstract
Historically, the United States has had a very conflicted relationship with poor immigrants. This conflictive relationship occurs because migrants have historically been necessary for the US economy but also rejected, and the United States has created the necessary mechanisms to convert them into a disposable workforce, with unquantifiable social costs. The Deportation Machine, by Adam Goodman, examines and confirms this failed relationship from a historical, political, and ideological perspective. In the book, Goodman discusses immigrants’ criminalization and the role xenophobia and racism have played in defining those who do not ‘deserve’ to be in the United States. In addition, Goodman seeks to establish how such racist ideologies are used to motivate self-deportations by instilling fear in immigrant communities. As a result, the author concludes, the number of ‘voluntary’ deportations is significantly higher than the official data suggest. In fact, it is almost impossible to assess. For Goodman, an appropriate definition of deportation should include all expulsion mechanisms, including self-deportations and voluntary departures.
Chapter 1 describes the different mechanisms and ideological factors that facilitated the creation of the deportation machine in the United States. Chapter 2 presents the operation of these mechanisms from a historical, political, and ideological perspective, while Chapter 3 makes a valuable contribution to understanding the deportation business’s human costs, which, due to deportation’s informal nature, remain unknown. Chapter 4 addresses events in which immigrants fought for their rights and challenged the deportation machinery, with the final chapter analyzing how these racist and xenophobic narratives that criminalize immigrants continue in current times and transcend US borders. As an example of how such narratives permeate other territories, Goodman points to Mexico’s efforts to stop, remove, and control poor Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence.
Goodman’s exposition of self-deportations and voluntary returns as non-legal, non-institutionalized or untraced forms of deportation is very insightful, particularly when he discusses the unmeasurable impacts of such acts on individuals, families, and communities. For Goodman, self-deportations and voluntary returns are the result of both formal and informal enforcement tactics, such as fear, rumors, and stories circulating in neighborhoods and communities, which lead to the constant terrorization of immigrants and, thus, their forced departure. Through interviews, reports, and data, he shows how these subtle tactics play a fundamental role in creating and establishing unofficial mechanisms of removal. As an example of informal enforcement tactics’ impacts, Goodman recounts how between the Great Depression and ‘Operation Wetback,’ thousands of Mexicans ‘voluntarily’ left the United States. As Goodman states, “the voluntary departures account for 85 percent of the nearly 57 million total expulsions during the last 125 years” (p. 208). In reality, however, these voluntary departures were the result of covert actions by the US government, rather than a consequence of immigrants’ autonomous decisions. Goodman affirms that Mexican migrants’ voluntary departure was facilitated by their criminalization and demonization, as well as the fear that arose in their communities.
In this book, it is particularly striking how Goodman emphasizes both the financial and emotional costs of deportation. Because of how removals are enforced, the full emotional and financial consequences cannot properly be assessed and will continue to be unmeasured. A particularly impactful finding is that in every chapter of the book, Goodman highlights how regardless of the removal method used (boats, trains, buses, or planes) or form of removal (formal deportation, self-deportation, or voluntary removal), the process of leaving the United States is traumatic for immigrants. The origin of financial, physical, and mental hardship in the deportation process is not accidental but, instead, constructed through the immigration system’s design. As Goodman’s book illustrates, punishment was a frequent experience during deportation, to the extent that punishing migrants became the goal of removal. Thus, the ‘deportation machine’ serves to teach migrants a lesson to discourage them and their communities from migrating to the United States. Such a perspective helps us frame and understand recent immigration trends and how governments around the world deal with perceived undesirable and poor immigrants within their territories.
Particularly surprising is the chapter, “The Human Costs of the Business of Deportation.” In it, Goodman demonstrates that there are frequently questionable collaborations between private companies and government agencies, which also include the alliance and complicity of foreign governments that have helped shape US migratory enforcement practices. Future research could fruitfully delve into more details on the role of foreign governments receiving deportees. Goodman makes clear that the migration process not only is traumatic but also sometimes happens with the complicity of governments and their institutions.
This book’s broad historical, political, and ideological perspective will be significant for academic research, political debates, and international migration advocates. Goodman’s more comprehensive definition of deportation, which includes voluntary departures, is essential to understanding how the deportation machine functions. Although this book focuses on the deportation machinery in the United States, it serves to understand international migration more broadly, mainly because it shows how the criminalization and demonization of poor immigrants is not only a US phenomenon but also a global trend that helps remove and control poor immigrants.