Socio-Legal frameworks to understand deportation of non-citizens: international laws versus national laws and policies

International law, supranational or regional law, and human rights frameworks categorically prohibit collective expulsion, while international and supranational courts are tasked with enforcing these legal norms. Yet despite these clear legal precedents, national laws continue to routinely utilise deportation as both a symbol and a mechanism of exclusion, marking certain individuals as ‘unwanted’ and subjecting them to removal. This contradiction forms the core question addressed in the special issue, ‘Socio-legal Frameworks to Discipline out Unwantedness: A Critical Lens on Mass Deportation of Non-Citizens’. This introduction critically interrogates the tensions between state sovereignty and the legal commitments under international law, offering a socio-legal perspective on the normalisation of mass deportation and its implications for human rights and global migration regimes. It aims to explore the theme of deportation through the key themes: (1) The past-present continuum of deportation; (2) The shift to a ‘deportation regime’ at the level of states, and (3) The facilitation of deportation through technology. While the topic can be approached as a technical analysis of international and national legal frameworks and their evolution over time, we aim to remind readers of the current state of affairs and reflect on what is being lost in this process.