Hidden Data

While the extant data reveal that 88% of all deportation orders issued by the United States in 127 years were to Mexico & Central America, what kinds of information are missing or hidden in this broad categorization?

For example, how many of the people deported were Indigenous? No data exists that accurately accounts for the number of Indigenous peoples who have been removed, excluded, and punished by the U.S. Immigration system.  In light of this dangerous statistical disappearing act, in this visualization we’ve attempted to estimate the proportion of deportation orders that have been issued against Indigenous people by assuming that the proportion of Indigenous people subject to deportation orders would mirror the percentage of Indigenous people in the corresponding countries throughout Mexico and Central America.

This is, of course, an imperfect estimation (and in all likelihood an underestimate). Relative Indigenous population data are only from the present-day, whereas historically the demographic composition no doubt varied significantly over the past 127 years. In addition, Indigenous Nations face ongoing legacies of colonial violence and racism that lead to compounded marginalization across multiple geographies, and therefore greater increased vulnerability to forced displacement. The same racism behind Indigenous Removal also functions as an erasing force in immigration datasets; erasing Indigenous peoples from datasets is a kind of statistical genocide.

Who else is also erased in broad regional and national categorizations?