The Deportation Machine: America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

Goodman (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago) provides a new perspective on the history of US immigration by focusing on expulsion and deportation rather than arrival and exclusion, in contrast to many recent studies. One of the book's major themes concerns the differences between formal deportations, resulting from legal orders; voluntary departures, where people choose to leave without entering the formal immigration system; and self-deportation, when immigrants willingly leave in the face of hostility or threats. Owing to the limitations of government immigration statistics, which reflect only formal deportations, Goodman attempts to determine the extent of voluntary departures and self-deportation. His research reflects both the difficulties and rewards of digging through often obscure and widely dispersed records. His scholarship also requires inferences from historical material to prove his conclusion that official reports of deportations reflect an incomplete accounting of the extent of the deportation process. This book is less a narrative history than a series of related essays on the topic, dealing primarily with Mexican immigrants on the Pacific Coast and southern border, rather than offering a comprehensive discussion of other immigrant groups and regions. Nevertheless, Goodman's method and presentation will stimulate discussions among students and scholars of immigration. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals. --Charles K. Piehl, emeritus, Minnesota State University, Mankato

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) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.