https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/ International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy Volume 12 (1) 2023 https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.2743 Except where otherwise noted, content in this journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. As an open access journal, articles are free to use with proper attribution. ISSN: 2202-8005 (Online) 42 © The Author/s 2023 Past–Present Differential Inclusion: Australia’s Targeted Deportation of Pacific Islanders, 1901 to 2021 Henrietta McNeill The Australian National University, Australia Marinella Marmo Flinders University, Australia Abstract Keywords: Deportation; differential inclusion; circular migration; migration policy; Pacific Islands; bad character. Introduction The Pacific Islands have long been geographically and strategically important to Australia, including as a source of resource extraction. One such resource is Pacific peoples, who, over the past century, have been harshly subjected to a process of ‘differential inclusion’ within (or exclusion from) Australia’s borders (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013: 251). This paper identifies the ‘continuity and durability’ of Australia’s differential inclusion of Pacific Islanders through its border control mechanisms, which produce different subject positions in line with state interests (Marmo, 2022: 240; see also, Banivanua-Mar, 2007; Segrave, 2019). Applying this theoretical lens reveals a continuum of the deportability of Pacific Islanders over time, dating back to the Federation of British colonies to form the independent Commonwealth of Australia (Australia) in 1901. Pacific Islanders are over-represented in Australian deportations, including as the first cohort to be deported from Australian shores in 1906. This paper identifies historical parallels between past colonial deportation practices and contemporary deportations of Pacific Islanders under Section (s) 501 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (the Migration Act), including people of Pacific heritage deported to New Zealand. These parallels show how colonial power connects race, labour and mobility within the continuum of differential inclusion produced by the border regime. In Australia, past and present, Pacific Islanders have been labelled as undesirable others, included to temporarily fill labour shortages as required, controlled while resident in the country and removed when no longer deemed necessary. Pacific Islanders’ experiences in Australia reveal the inception, continuity and durability of differential inclusion produced by border control mechanisms. This paper traces Australia’s history of deporting Pacific Islanders over more than a century: from indentured labour and blackbirding, colonial occupation of Pacific Islands and the White Australia Policy, to more recent patterns of selective inclusion, such as the labour mobility schemes, to the disproportionate effects on Pacific Islanders of modifications to the criteria for deportability introduced in 2014 with the amendments to Section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth). By tracing the past–present circular border policies, this paper argues that the high number of Pasifika New Zealanders deported from Australia represents a continuation of a regime of differential inclusion.