Antiquity Expulsions occurred in
ancient history. They were well-recorded particularly in
ancient Mesopotamia.
Deportation in the Achaemenid Empire Deportation was practiced as a policy toward rebellious people in
Achaemenid Empire. The precise legal status of the deportees is unclear; but ill-treatment is not recorded. Instances include:
Deportation in the Parthian Empire Unlike in the Achaemenid and Sassanian periods, records of deportation are rare during the
Arsacid Parthian period. One notable example was the deportation of the
Mards in
Charax, near
Ray by
Phraates I. The 10,000 Roman prisoners of war after the
Battle of Carrhae appear to have been deported to
Merv near the eastern border in 53 BC, who are said to married to local people. It is hypothesized that some of them founded the Chinese city of
Liqian after becoming soldiers for the
Xiongnu tribe, but this is doubted. Roman POWs in the
Antony's Parthian War may have suffered deportation. In the mid-3rd century, Greek-speaking deportees from north-western Syria were settled in
Kashkar, Mesopotamia. After the Arab incursion into Persia during
Shapur II's reign, he scattered the
defeated Arab tribes by deporting them to other regions. Some were deported to
Bahrain and
Kirman, possibly to both populate these unattractive regions (due to their climate) and bringing the tribes under control.
Modern deportation With the beginning of the
Age of Discovery, deporting individuals to an overseas colony also became common practice. As early as the 16th century,
degredados formed a substantial portion of early colonists in
Portuguese empire. From 1717 onward Britain deported around 40,000 British religious objectors and "criminals" to America before the practice ceased in 1776. Jailers sold the "criminals" to shipping contractors, who then sold them to
plantation owners. The "criminals" worked for the plantation owner for the duration of their sentence. Meanwhile, in Japan during
Sakoku, all Portuguese and Spanish people were expelled from the country. In the 18th century the
Tipu Sultan, of
Mysore, deported tens of thousands of civilians, from lands he had annexed, to serve as slave labour in other parts of his empire, for example the:
Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam. In the late 19th century the United States of America began designating "desired" and "undesired" immigrants, leading to the birth of
illegal immigration and subsequent deportation of immigrants when found in irregular situations. Starting with the
Chinese Exclusion Act, the US government has since deported more than 55 million immigrants, the majority of whom came from Latin-American countries. At the beginning of the 20th century the control of immigration began becoming common practice, with the
Immigration Restriction Act 1901 in Australia, the
Aliens Act 1905 in the United Kingdom and the
Continuous journey regulation of 1908 in Canada, elevating the deportation of "illegal" immigrants to a global scale. In the meantime, deportation of "regular residents" also increased.
United States In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, more stringent enforcement of immigration laws were ordered by the executive branch of the U.S. government, which led to increased deportation and
repatriation to Mexico. In the 1930s, during the
Great Depression, between 355,000 and 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans were deported or repatriated to Mexico, an estimated 40 to 60% of whom were U.S. citizens – overwhelmingly children. At least 82,000 Mexicans were formally deported between 1929 and 1935 by the government. Voluntary repatriations were more common than deportations. In 1954, the executive branch of the U.S. government implemented
Operation Wetback, a program created in response to public hysteria about immigration and immigrants from Mexico. Operation Wetback led to the deportation of nearly 1.3 million Mexicans from the United States.
Nazi Germany Nazi policies deported
homosexuals, Jews,
Poles, and
Romani from their established places of residence to
Nazi concentration camps or
extermination camps set up at a considerable distance from their original residences. During the Holocaust, the Nazis made heavy use of
euphemisms, where "deportation" frequently meant the victims were subsequently killed, as opposed to simply being relocated.
Russia and the Soviet Union The
Grand Principality of Moscow developed policies of internal exile - the transfer of undesirable individuals or groups to remote territories. An early example of
population exchange occurred following Moscow's conquest of the
Novgorod Republic in the 15th century. The
Tsardom of Russia, the
Russian Empire, the
Soviet Union and the
Russian Federation continued similar practices as a more humane alternative to execution, deporting undesirables with or without sentences of
forced labor - instituting
katorga, the
Gulag system and
corrective labor colonies. In the 19th century, for example, rebellious
Poles and
Decembrists found themselves in
Siberia, and
Dostoevsky experienced katorga in Siberia and exile in Central Asia. Prior to 1917 several early Bolsheviks served time in remote cities and governorates. The Soviet Union, especially under
Joseph Stalin during the 1930s and 1940s, carried out forced mass-transfers of some 6 million people, resulting in millions of deaths. As many as 110 separate deportations have been catalogued, included the targeting of at least 13 distinct ethnicities and 8 entire nations. Many historians have described Soviet deportations as
ethnic cleansing,
crimes against humanity, and/or
genocide. Besides the imprisonment of
dissidents (such as
Vladimir Kara-Murza and
Alexei Navalny) in remote outposts, the Russian Federation has
deported Ukrainians in the course of the
Russo-Ukrainian War (2014 onwards).
Azerbaijan The
Karabakh movement for independence was met with a
series of pogroms and
forced deportations of Armenians across Azerbaijan. Notable examples include
Operation Ring in 1991 as well as the
expulsion of all Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023.
Independent State of Croatia An estimated 120,000
Serbs were deported from the
Independent State of Croatia to
German-occupied Serbia, and 300,000 fled by 1943.
Contemporary All countries reserve the right to deport persons without
right of abode, even those who are longtime
residents or possess
permanent residency. In general, foreigners who have committed serious crimes, entered the country illegally, overstayed or broken the conditions of their
visa, or otherwise lost their legal status to remain in the country may be administratively removed or deported. Since the 1980s, the world also saw the development of practices of
externalization/"offshoring immigrants", currently being used by Australia, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Some of the countries in the
Persian Gulf have even used this to deport their own citizens, paying the
Comoros to give them
passports and accept them. The period after the fall of the
Iron Curtain showed increased deportation and
readmission agreements in parts of Europe. During its
invasion of Ukraine, the
Russian Federation has perpetrated mass deportations of Ukrainian citizens to Russia and occupied territories. While independent numbers are difficult to come by, and depending on the degree of Russian coercion or force required to meet the definition of "deported", reported numbers range from tens of thousands to 4.5 million deportees. The
Dominican Republic deported more than 250,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian
descent to
Haiti in 2023.
Deportation of undocumented Afghans from Pakistan since 2023. By January 2025, over 813,300 individuals had been repatriated to Afghanistan.
Deportation in the second presidency of Donald Trump since 2025. The Trump administration has claimed that around 140,000 people had been deported as of April 2025, though some estimates put the number at roughly half that amount. In May 2025, the
Iranian government ordered the
mass deportation of an estimated 4 million
Afghan migrants and refugees to
Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan. ==Noteworthy deportees==