My Webster's defines "deportation" as follows: 2. the removal from a country of an alien whose presence is unlawful or prejudicial.
According to this definition, deportation does not include being exiled from ones OWN country.
You prefer to say "send back" - to their country of origin. The country of origin may not be where deportees will feel "at home". In most cases, they'll feel at home where they are "illegals" though according to linca, all are allowed to may remain in France so that there would be no "illegals" but I think he was talking of a basic human right, not of the legal status according to French law of those who are "sent back".
However anyone feels about it, the technical term for this forced return to their country of origin is still "deportation".
BTW: I'm not sure of this but I believe that in German usage, the term "Deportation" is mostly (only?) used with regards to 'transport' of Jews in WWII or other groups of people during wars in general. There is another, a German word used for sending illegals to their country of origin: "Abschiebung" which translates as "deportation" or literally as the fact of being 'pushed off/away', which isn't a much nicer word, either.
I understand the political implications that you see. You would have to choose the term "repatriation" which would be a more positive word that would also consider the deportee's country of origin as his home. I wonder, though, whether 'repatriation' wouldn't require the deportee's consent at being repatriated...
Here's what I have:
Deportation De`por*ta"tion, n. [L. depotatio: cf. F. d['e]portation.] The act of deporting or exiling, or the state of being deported; banishment; transportation.
In their deportations, they had often the favor of their conquerors. --Atterbury.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
New Pocket Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary © 2005 Oxford University Press: déportation depɔʀtasjɔ̃ feminine noun internment in a concentration camp; Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I still believe that this is just about a difference in language usage. When I look up the German word that is used to describe the process of sending people to their country of origin, it's not the same as the one describing deportation (to concentration camps), yet when I look for a translation - I'll still arrive at deportation in English period.
Deportation (German) - deportation (English) Abschiebung (German) - deportation (English) Abschiebung (German) - Expulsion/reconduite à la frontière (French)
Déportation (French) - deportation (English) Expulsion (French) - expulsion (English)
Maybe "EXPULSION" is the better, less controversial word; it doesn't say anything about where anyone is going - just that someone is not allowed to remain in the country where he resides and that he is sent across the border.
So deportation is the correct description. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
3) What would be the situation when you would you use the word "expulsion" since you don't think it's correct to call deportations expulsions?
If there are 'legal holes' in this system, there is injustice and people are forced out of the country only to find torture and death, there is a problem that must be addressed differently.
To question the reality of deportations as they take place today (not just their scope) also questions the value of citizenship as such. Doesn't it?
