After the inauguration of Democratic President Joe Biden, in January 2020, the deportations fell to 24
The United States deported 297 Portuguese between 2017 and 2020, during Donald Trump’s first presidential term, according to a new portal that accompanies deportation orders issued in the country since 1895.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Million Dollar Hoods initiative launched Mapping Deportations, a portal that serves as an analytical tool for US immigration policy.
According to the data, the peak of deportations during the republican leader’s first term took place in 2019, when 97 Portuguese citizens were expelled from the United States.
According to the portal Mapping Deportations, which brings together data until 2022, after the inauguration of Democratic President Joe Biden, in January 2020, the deportations fell to 24.
Still, the historical maximum of 191 deportations from Portuguese was recorded in 2010, the year the US President was another Democrat, Barack Obama.
There are officially 1.45 million people of Portuguese origin to reside in the United States, according to the latest census of 2020.
In the latest report on US immigration and customs services, it appears that 69 Portuguese were repatriated in 2024, nine more than the previous year.
At the end of February, the then Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities assumed in the Assembly of the Republic that there are no exact numbers about the Portuguese at risk of US deportation.
José Cesário recalled that 360 had already exceeded 90 days of temporary stay granted under the ‘Visa Waiver’ (program that allows business or tourism without prior visa) and that the Senate (High House of Parliament) had identified about four thousand as outside the permanence period.
Cesário added at the same time that 24 Portuguese were detained in the United States.
According to Mapping Deportations, the United States deported a total of 5,323 Portuguese since 1895.
Ahilan Arulanantham, a Codirector of the UCLA Law School and Immigration Policy Center (CILP), which leads the project, explained that mapping reveals how “systemic racism” shaped immigration laws.
The data show that 96% of all deportation orders were directed to Latin American, Caribbean, Asia and Africa countries.
For example, the United States has deported more than 69,000 Brazilians since 1895, including 2,507 in 2022, and 8,549 during Donald Trump’s first term.
UCLA teacher Kelly Lytle Hernández, who participates in the project, said she illustrates how immigration laws, and in particular deportation policies, shaped the country’s racial composition since its foundation, “a phenomenon that has been happening today.”
