It does happen here
Our long history of rounding people up and kicking them out

Mass deportation. It's an Orwellian phrase we associate with the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide. Sending armed troops to pull millions of people, including babies and seniors, from their homes, forcing them into squalid camps, and then transferring them to a land where they have nothing — it sounds like something only a crazed dictator would do. Not a democratic country, certainly not my own country. But in fact, the U.S. has done it multiple times, and not just during wartime. The Trail of Tears, when President Andrew Jackson signed the 1830 Indian Removal Act to expel tens of thousands of Native Americans from their land. During the Depression, when the U.S. kicked out up to 1.8 million people of Mexican descent, half of them U.S. citizens, to preserve jobs for whites. And Operation Wetback (yes, really), when President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the Border Patrol to truck over a million Mexican laborers back to Mexico. All of these actions were popular at the time, and all were seen in retrospect as shameful chapters in U.S. history.
Yet here we are again. Studies show that deporting immigrants doesn't help the economy; it hurts it. But Donald Trump says that if he's elected president, he will expel up to 20 million people, a figure far higher than the 11 million undocumented immigrants believed to be in the U.S. now. At the Republican convention, attendees carried signs blaring "Mass Deportation Now" and chanted "Send them back!" In a June poll, 6 in 10 voters said they supported the idea, including a third of Democrats, while just under half supported mass detention centers where those arrested (some of them doubtless citizens) would be sent for processing. Do these Americans understand how traumatic such an upheaval would be? The spectacle of troops going door to door, of families being rounded up, would be heart-wrenching. The blatant racism of the endeavor — it's not Norwegians over-staying visas who would be targeted — would rip this nation apart. Mass deportation is not un-American. But it should be.
This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Susan Caskie is The Week's international editor and was a member of the team that launched The Week's U.S. print edition. She has worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Transitions magazine, and UN Wire, and reads a bunch of languages.
-
Democrats: The 2028 race has begun
Feature Democratic primaries have already kicked off in South Carolina
-
The Pentagon's missing missiles
Feature The U.S. military is low on weapons. Can it restock before a major conflict breaks out?
-
Rescissions: Trump's push to control federal spending
Feature The GOP passed a bill to reduce funding for PBS, NPR and other public media stations
-
The Pentagon's missing missiles
Feature The U.S. military is low on weapons. Can it restock before a major conflict breaks out?
-
Rescissions: Trump's push to control federal spending
Feature The GOP passed a bill to reduce funding for PBS, NPR and other public media stations
-
Knives come out for Pam Bondi
IN THE SPOTLIGHT She wasn't Trump's first pick to lead the Justice Department. After months of scandals and setbacks, is the attorney general's MAGA shelf life winding down?
-
ICE builds detention camps and ramps up arrests
Feature The Trump administration's deportation efforts continue
-
Can Gaza aid drops work?
Today's Big Question UN's Palestinian refugee agency calls plan a 'distraction and smokescreen' as pressure mounts on Israel to agree ceasefire and fully open land crossings
-
'Spending is what card issuers are hoping you will do'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump executive order targets homeless
Speed Read It will now be easier for states and cities to remove homeless people from the streets
-
Florida judge and DOJ make Epstein trouble for Trump
Speed Read The Trump administration's request to release grand jury transcripts from the Epstein investigation was denied