Irish Examiner view: Dignity must be a part of deportations

Given the chance, many would prefer going on our own terms to being shipped out en masse and under guard

Gardaí escort deportees up the aircraft steps during Operation Trench, with each individual assigned two personal escorts. gardaí were instructed to treat every person with dignity and respect throughout the process. Picture: Chani Anderson

“Deportation” has never been a very pretty word.

Perhaps it suits the process, which isn’t a very pretty one either. Nonetheless, it can be very easy to say and call for, especially when one doesn’t have to think about what it entails and who it effects, and when many of us encounter clips on social media of America’s ICE seizing people by force of gunpoint and into what might as well be called concentration camps.