If both are put on the same level, it also implies that the deporting country is somehow responsible for the situation (from lower standard of living to starvation, from restrictive authoritarian regimes to killing fields) that people will find in their 'home' country. The idea is that asylum-seekers will ask for asylum for a good reason and that it will be granted when the reasons are considered valid by local authorities. Those are the rules.
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?