ABSTRACT
At one level, deportation appears to be the logical and inevitable outcome of a rational legal system which has determined that an individual has no legal right to remain in a particular territory. It is a legal expression of sovereign will; widely understood as a legitimate and routine administrative act. In many cases ‘voluntary’ departures are made, no doubt involving varying degrees of reluctance, relief, regret and persuasion. But at other times the process of expulsion is characterized by resistance, fear and coercion. Observed at first hand, forced deportation reveals itself to be a process infused with human degradation and suffering. As reported by one sympathetic UK immigration officer: ‘people struggle to go sometimes you know, and they’re tied up and handcuffed and you think, well what happens to these people when they get back to their countries?’ (Weber and Gelsthorpe, 2000: 93).
