Self-deportation is an approach to dealing with
illegal immigration
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...
, used in the
United States and the
United Kingdom, that allows an otherwise inadmissible person to voluntarily depart a country for which they have no legal ties to rather than face removal proceedings in front of the native court system. It became associated with
illegal immigration to the United States
Illegal immigration to the United States is the process of migrating into the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. This can include foreign nationals (aliens) who have entered the United States unlawfully, as well as thos ...
in the 1990s.
History
This term was used as early as 1984 in a ''
People'' article about the film director
Roman Polanski, which referred to his self-deporting.
The term gained its current association with illegal immigration in the 1990s, especially in
California. In 1994,
William Safire described its usage by
California governor Pete Wilson's immigration strategy, exemplified by
Proposition 187, which prevented illegal aliens from using a variety of state social services. Safire summarized the philosophy of the approach as holding that "the most cost-effective way to change behavior is to make life unbearable under present behavior."
The same year,
Lalo Alcaraz and Esteban Zul launched a
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
campaign involving a character named "Daniel D. Portado" (a pun on ''deportado'',
Spanish for ''deported''), who facetiously promoted self-deportation.
See also
*
Immigration reduction in the United States
*
Immigration reform
Immigration reform is change to the current immigration policy of a country. In its strict definition, ''reform'' means "to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses". In the political sense, "immigration ...
*
Home Office hostile environment policy
References
Political terminology of the United States
Illegal immigration to the United States
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