Segmented Re/integration: Divergent Post-Deportation Trajectories in the US-El Salvador Transnation
Abstract: The U.S. is in the midst of a Great Expulsion. Record rates of non-citizens are forcibly expelled from the country each year, but little is known about their post-deportation experiences. This project draws from life history narratives of 100 persons deported to El Salvador since the mid-1990s. After outlining a comprehensive model of deportee re/integration, it shows how the unique context of return in El Salvador interacts with deportees’ national identities, affiliations, and histories of criminalization to construct divergent social and economic outcomes. The findings challenge pervasive logics upholding the deportation regime, especially that deportees necessarily “belong” in their countries-of-origin. Deportees’ narratives also offer suggestions to more humanely manage migration to the U.S. and deportee re/insertion abroad.
