Deportations by Year

Deportation data is complex. Although our feature map, Who Gets Deported?: 1895–2022, depicts deportation orders as tied to ten geographic regions, such aggregations can come with their own set of harms (see Hidden Data: Mexico and Central America). 

These broad regional categorizations can erase the specific circumstances and experiences of different migrant communities, particularly with regard to the root causes of migration. Racializations can shift over time, including who (and which countries of origin) are racialized as white.

To balance these contradictory and harmful practices of regional aggregation with maintaining categorical representation over time, our featured map shows 10 regional categorizations with deportation orders represented as scaled dots moving to the geographic region, alongside a racing barchart animation that lists the top five recipients of the most deportations. Throughout this visualization we use the categories utilized in government data for that year. For example, when the barchart lists “Hebrew,” that is because government records of the time used that term.

In addition, the interactive bubble chart Deportations by Year: 1895–2022 is based on the same information utilized in the Who Gets Deported?: 1895–2022 map, but makes it available by yearly and regional breakdowns with the original source categories as used for the main map. Use it to drill deeper into deportation data for particular years, regions, or even individual countries.