Buoyed by shifting political winds, ‘Deport!’ is the new ‘Go back where you come from’ echoed by racists | Ghassan Hage

‘Deport!’ oozes an entirely different sense of power – one where the racist imagines they can call upon the state to act on their behalf There is a rise in racist rhetoric surrounding deportation. This is clearly influenced by the increased use of deportation against immigrants and asylum seekers worldwide, particularly in the United States. But my concern here is not so much the governmental practice itself as the racist language that it has helped disseminate and legitimise: I write something on X, and some random racist who dislikes what I wrote decides that because my name is Ghassan Hage I must be a potentially deportable subject and simply writes “deport” as a comment. Nasser Mashni, the president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, notes in Crikey that “deport” is “the comment most often left on anything I post”.