The Deportation Machine

America's Long History of Expelling Immigrants

By: Adam Goodman

Narrated by: Robert Fass

The Deportation Machine traces the long and troubling history of the US government's systematic efforts to terrorize and expel immigrants over the past 140 years. This provocative, eye-opening book provides needed historical perspective on one of the most pressing social and political issues of our time.

In a sweeping and engaging narrative, Adam Goodman examines how federal, state, and local officials have targeted various groups for expulsion, from Chinese and Europeans at the turn of the 20th century to Central Americans and Muslims today. He reveals how authorities have singled out Mexicans, nine out of 10 of all deportees, and removed most of them not by orders of immigration judges but through coercive administrative procedures and calculated fear campaigns.

Goodman uncovers the machine's three primary mechanisms - formal deportations, "voluntary" departures, and self-deportations - and examines how public officials have used them to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain.

Exposing the pervasive roots of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, The Deportation Machine introduces the politicians, bureaucrats, business people, and ordinary citizens who have pushed for and profited from expulsion.

©2020 Adam Goodman (P)2020 Tantor

Excellent and Important (and poorly read)

Goodman's book is well researched, well organized, and well written. Informative and persuasive, the book provides a fairly comprehensive overview of the USA's expulsion mechanisms in temporal and political context. The narrator, Robert Fass, has an excellent voice but the chosen style of narration is a mismatch for this serious, scholarly book.
A century ago, silent movies signaled the bad nature of villains by having the actor engage in over-the-top stereotyped behavior. Strangely, Fass engages in stereotyped vocal signaling throughout this book. Rather than adopting a trustworthy, centered tone that would fit this scholarly book, Fass reads with a sneer. The weirdly ill-fitting tone punctuates most sentences with "and that's really bad." That narration approach can cover for thin evidence or poor logic in axe-grinding pulp, but Goodman's work needs no such cover. If I had it to do over, I'd buy the print version.