Full bibliography

Deportation helped to relieve employers, municipalities, and the state from the burdens of poverty, unemployment, and political unrest, by getting rid of workers when they became useless, surplus, or obstreperous. But this is only half of the equation: apparently straightforward economic imperatives were also profoundly political. Agitators and radicals challenged a social and economic order (and a political system) that immigration policy served. Radicals were designated as undesirable not so much by legislation as by employer blacklists and complaints, the surveillance networks of the industrial and Dominion police, the militia, the RCMP, and United States intelligence, and a certain anti-labour tradition in immigration policy. Deportation preserved the status quo. Immigration officials at times lied to conceal their activities; they broke their own laws, and consistently abused their power, operating virtually outside the knowledge and control of Parliament, the courts, and the general public.