Deportation is often viewed as an extension of a state’s right to control immigration within its borders.

This lawful expulsion of undocumented noncitizens, nonimmigrant overstayers, and
failed asylum-seekers is justified by government officials as a means to enforce borders (p.119, Gibney, 2013). The United States (US) also deports certain noncitizens -particularly those convicted of “aggravated” felonies- as these are perceived as a threat to the security of the state and/or its citizens. Such reasoning apparently legitimises US legislation ordering the mandatory detainment and deportation of noncitizens convicted of immigration feloniesand/or crimes mandating one or more years of jail time (p.119, Gibney, 2013). Current deportation rulings tend to result from individual breaches of immigration legislation or terms and are not blatantly structures of collective expulsion-a practice forbidden in international law (p.119, Gibney, 2013). Nonetheless, targeted deportation may also be implemented as an instrument to control or discipline noncitizens populations. Still, states that flagrantly deport noncitizens “en-masse” tend to be criticised and condemned by the international community and forced migration scholars alike (p.124, Gibney, 2013).

Matthew Gibney clarifies that forced migration scholars have generally avoided the area of deportation given the implicit legality and legitimacy it connotes . This legitimacy is derived from its foundation on the principles of the modern liberal-statist reality. Gibney
comprehensively outlines deportation as an inarguably explicit branch of forced migration due to the absolute lack of choice of an individual. Deportees are often quite literally forced from their country of residence with minimal agency in terms of when, where or how they leave (p.116, Gibney, 2013). It is essential to avoid conflating the preference for Voluntary Return with a truly freely chosen option. Detainees are at times misinformed and/or pressured into “choosing” Voluntary Return in order to avoid an explicit prohibition of re-entry into the deporting state and prolonged detention awaiting a trial(p.216, Kanstroom, 2007).

Though the statistics on deportation do not often reflect these removals, for the purposes of this work these would still represent forced migration. The term “forced migrant” is commonly applied to persons who are obliged to abandon their “home” (state of residence, but more commonly of origin) due to conflict, persecution or human rights abuses (p.121, Gibney, 2013).

One might argue that the persecution in cases of deportation, if not racial, then can be attributed to the persecution of those persons categorised as “undocumented” and/or as “criminal” noncitizens.