Deportation facts for kids

Deportation means when someone is officially forced to leave a country. People can be deported for many reasons. For example, they might have entered the country without permission or a visa (which is like a special pass).

Sometimes, deportation can even happen within a country. A person or a group might be forced to move to a different part of their own country as a punishment.

History

Ancient Times

Forcing people to leave their homes happened a lot in ancient history. It's well-recorded in places like ancient Mesopotamia. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah faced several forced removals. For example, the Neo-Assyrian Empire deported people after they conquered Israel in the 8th century BC. Later, the Neo-Babylonian Empire deported many people from Judah in 597 BC and 587 BC.

Deportation in the Achaemenid Empire

The Achaemenid Empire (an ancient Persian empire) used deportation as a way to deal with rebellious people. For instance, they moved Egyptians to Susa and people from Barca to Bactria. The Milesians were sent to a place near the Persian Gulf. People from Eretria were moved to Susiana. Even some Jews who supported a revolt were sent to Hyrcania.

Deportation in the Parthian Empire

Records of deportation are less common during the Parthian Empire. One example is when the Mards were deported by Phraates I. After the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, about 10,000 Roman prisoners of war were sent to Alexandria Margiana. Some stories say they married local people there.

Hyrcanus II, a Jewish king, was settled among the Jews in Babylon after being captured by Parthian forces in 40 BC.

Deportation in the Sasanian Empire

The Sasanians, another Persian empire, often used deportation, especially during their wars with the Romans.

During Shapur I's rule, Roman soldiers captured at the Battle of Edessa were deported to different parts of the Sasanian Empire. Some cities were even built and filled with these Roman prisoners of war, like Bishapur and Gundeshapur. These deportations helped Christianity spread in the Sasanian Empire.

Later, after an Arab attack, Shapur II deported defeated Arab tribes to places like Bahrain and Kirman. This helped control the tribes and populate less attractive regions.

In 395 AD, about 18,000 Roman people were captured by the "Huns" and deported. But when they reached Persia, the Persians freed them and settled them in new places. The king Yazdegerd I was praised for treating these deportees well. He even allowed some to return home.

More major deportations happened during the Anastasian War, when Kavad I moved people from cities like Theodosiopolis and Amida.

Khosrau I also deported many people from Roman cities like Antioch and Aleppo. They were sent to a new city called Wēh-Antiyōk-Khosrow, built especially for them near Ctesiphon. Khosrow tried to make them feel at home there. Some records say as many as 292,000 people were deported.

Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages in Europe, there were many large religious deportations. Christians, Jews, and Muslims were all forced to move. For example, the Almoravid rulers deported Christians from Spain to Morocco several times between 1109 and 1138.

Modern Deportation

With the start of the Age of Discovery, it became common to deport people to faraway colonies. From the 16th century, Portugal sent degredados (exiled people) to their colonies. From 1717, Britain deported about 40,000 British people, including religious objectors and "criminals," to America. These "criminals" were sold to plantation owners and had to work for them. After Britain lost control of America, Australia became the new destination. Britain sent over 160,000 "criminals" to the Australian colonies between 1787 and 1855.

In Japan, during a period called Sakoku, all Portuguese and Spanish people were expelled from the country.

In the 18th century, Tipu Sultan of Mysore deported tens of thousands of civilians. He forced them to work as slaves in other parts of his empire.

In the late 19th century, the United States started deciding who were "desired" and "undesired" immigrants. This led to the idea of illegal immigration and the deportation of immigrants found without proper papers. Starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act, the US government has since deported more than 55 million immigrants. Most of these people came from Latin American countries.

In the early 20th century, controlling immigration became common worldwide. Laws like the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 in Australia and the Aliens Act 1905 in the United Kingdom made deporting "illegal" immigrants a global practice. At the same time, the deportation of "regular residents" also increased.

United States

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the U.S. government increased efforts to enforce immigration laws. This led to more deportations and repatriations (sending people back to their home country) to Mexico. Between 355,000 and 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans were deported or repatriated. An estimated 40% to 60% of them were U.S. citizens, mostly children. In 1954, the U.S. government started Operation Wetback. This program was created because of public fear about immigrants from Mexico. It led to the deportation of nearly 1.3 million Mexicans from the United States.

Nazi Germany

Nazi policies involved deporting homosexuals, Jews, Poles, and Romani from their homes. They were sent to Nazi concentration camps or extermination camps, which were far from where they lived. During the Holocaust, the Nazis often used words like "deportation" as a euphemism. This meant the victims were sent to camps where they were often later killed, not just simply moved.

Independent State of Croatia

An estimated 120,000 Serbs were deported from the Independent State of Croatia to German-occupied Serbia. Another 300,000 fled by 1943.

Contemporary Times

Today, most countries have the right to deport people who do not have the right of abode (the right to live there permanently). This applies even to those who have lived there for a long time or have permanent residency. Generally, foreigners who have committed serious crimes, entered a country illegally, stayed longer than their visa allowed, or broken their visa rules can be deported.

Since the 1980s, countries have also started "externalizing" or "offshoring" immigrants. This means sending them to other countries. Australia, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union use this practice. Some countries in the Persian Gulf have even paid the Comoros to give their own citizens passports and accept them.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, there were more deportations and agreements to send people back to their home countries in parts of Europe.

During its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation has carried out mass deportations of Ukrainian citizens to Russia and occupied areas. The number of deportees is hard to confirm, but reports range from tens of thousands to 4.5 million people.

In 2023, the Dominican Republic deported more than 250,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent to Haiti.

Noteworthy Deportees

Some famous people who were deported from the United States include Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, Fritz Julius Kuhn, Lucky Luciano, and Anna Sage. They were arrested, taken to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, and then forced to leave the United States on ships.

Related pages

• Ethnic cleansing

Images for kids

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  Prisoners and gendarmes on the road to Siberia, 1845

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  A certificate of identity for a deported person. This is from Chinese deportation records of the US District court in Los Angeles County, California.

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  Ethnic Germans being deported from the Sudetenland after World War II

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  Radicals waiting to be deported at Ellis Island, New York Harbor, 1920

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  Striking miners and others being deported at gunpoint from Lowell, Arizona, in 1917, during the Bisbee Deportation.

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  People being deported during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising

See also

In Spanish: Deportación para niños