The "undesirables": Canadian deportation policy and its impact on female immigrants, 1946--1956

This dissertation examines female immigrants who were targeted for deportation after the Second World War. The women documented in this study include a broad array of immigrants who came to Canada from different locales such as Europe, the Caribbean and the United States. They were also quite divergent in terms of their class and racial backgrounds and experiences during and after the war. The only thing they shared, was that they were targeted for deportation by the federal Immigration Branch. Relying on 376 deportation case files from the Library and Archives of Canada---along with many other types of sources---this study delves into the diverse experiences of these women and attempts to piece together their treatment by the state as well as responses to the deportation process. As non-citizens, I argue, they did not have the resources and rights that Canadians enjoyed. Consequently, female immigrants who committed an offence under the Immigration Act were vulnerable to deportation and could not rely on the court system to protect them. Furthermore, this study illustrates that these women's experiences were different than those of Canadian women as well as their male counterparts. As such, regardless of the fact that the Immigration legislation appeared somewhat gender neutral, female immigrants were charged with different offences and subject to different standards than male immigrants, when the immigration officials were adjudicating their cases. The female immigrants in this study were typically convicted of offences under the Immigration Act relating to mental and physical health problems, moral charges, indebtedness and dependency. While these types of crimes were not included in the Criminal Code of Canada, they were an integral part of the Immigration Act, and female aliens who violated them, were typically reported, interrogated, regulated, and deported for committing these offences. Most of the women had no option but to submit to the deportation process and cooperate with the department's attempt to expel these female immigrants from Canada and return them to their homelands. There were, however, some women who fought back; a few disappeared, others refused to testify or sign the deportation order, and finally, a very small number challenged their cases all the way to the superior courts. Consequently, not all were victimized by the state