# What other forced relocations of more than 11 million people have occurred in history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 28, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224 "2016-08-28T00:31:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/1 "2016-08-28T00:31:14Z")
Let’s assume that The Donald’s recent musing about how hard it might be to deport people who have been in the US for more than say 20 years, are just that, musings. Let’s assume that spurred on by Anne Coulter, Sarah Palin and others, in a day or too he will get back to forced deportation of 11 million people from the US within one year of his assuming office. What other forced movements of 11 million or more have occurred in history, and by whom? Just trying to get some context here. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/2 "2016-08-28T00:47:14Z")
I’m going to move this to GQ where it was intended to go. Here’s hoping it stays there. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/3 "2016-08-28T00:52:26Z")
Within five years, approximately [12-13 million Germans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_%281944%E2%80%9350%29) were forced out of Poland, Czechoslovakia and other East/Central European countries and made to migrate to Germany/Austria. With modern technology maybe we could tighten that time scale up a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/4 "2016-08-28T01:07:36Z")
Thank you **Jonathan.** Thatnks for that link, **Jophiel**. So, in that case of approximately the same number of people moved, the casualty rate was at least 500,000. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/5 "2016-08-28T01:11:41Z")
On a much smaller scale, there was the [Trail of Tears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears). Also the [Japanese Internment Camps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans) Both involved way fewer than 11 million people, but still… ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/6 "2016-08-28T01:30:48Z")
I don’t know about that huge number of people, but after WWII, about a million were either freed from concentration camps or emerged from hiding and sought help at displaced persons camps (or were taken there and not given a choice), which were set up especially to deal with these people, and it was still a clusterf\*ck. Granted, 2016 technology would have greatly streamlined reuniting families, which was one reason people lingered at the camps longer than strictly necessary, and also, these people were on the whole in very poor health from malnutrition. They also, for the most part, wanted to go somewhere, and didn’t want to stay where they were, albeit, there was some disagreement about where to send them. The Allies wanted to send them back to where they had lived pre-war, and they wanted to go to the US, Palestine/Israel, or Western Europe, and people who had lived in Germany were at first considered Germans, and therefore the enemy, even if they were Jewish and right out of the camps (that got straightened out after a bit). Anyway, relocating anyone who can be defined as illegal is going to be an awfully expensive undertaking. If Trump wins, and if he does something like this, I suspect that the first thing that he’s going to face is the realization that he’s going to have to extend amnesty to people who have been here for an extended amount of time, and some people in other circumstances. Like anyone whose country of origin no longer exists. There’s going to have to be a streamlined process to hastily move through lots of need-based amnesty applications, like for people who came here to escape persecution. This normally takes a long time, and many people who apply are initially here illegally, but get temporary status when they make the application. They’re kind of in Limbo as far as whether they’d be considered illegal under Trump’s definition. Also, people who came here as children, and don’t speak the language of the countries they’d be returned to face a special hell-- but on the other hand, they were usually educated here, so the US is invested in them, and has good reason to keep them. Trump clearly has not thought the thing out. It’s not like there’s unexplored territory to the West, and we can just march them into it. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/7 "2016-08-28T01:59:08Z")
In sheer numbers it would be the largest such expulsion. But as a proportion of population the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain in the early 17th century ( where disputably as much as 4% of the combined population of the Spanish crown and maybe a third of Valencia’s population was lost ) and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the early 20th century would be actions of comparable scope. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/8 "2016-08-28T02:41:15Z")
What about the population exchange between India and Pakistan? was it comparable? ---
**Author:** ![stosh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@stosh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stosh)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/9 "2016-08-28T02:58:37Z")
They didn’t all come here at once, so, why do they all have to go back at once. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/10 "2016-08-28T03:04:01Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > On a much smaller scale, there was the [Trail of Tears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears). > > Also the [Japanese Internment Camps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans) > > Both involved way fewer than 11 million people, but still… Don’t forget [Stalin’s WWII forced migration of mostly North Caucasians and ethnic Germans (and other ethnic minorities considered “untrustworthy”).](https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/depo.html) Not as many people in sheer numbers, and not much effort was made for it to be orderly or anything of the sort. Estimates of the death rate range from 25 - 50%. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/11 "2016-08-28T03:26:02Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > What about the population exchange between India and Pakistan? was it comparable? Yes, that is another good example and actually might beat Trump’s supposed numbers. As a percentage it is probably very roughly comparable ( maybe ~14.5 million internally displaced from a pre-partition population of ~390 million ). ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/12 "2016-08-28T03:33:43Z")
> [@stosh](#): > > They didn’t all come here at once, so, why do they all have to go back at once. Because The Donald says so: [Trump Would Deport ‘Criminal Illegal Immigrants’ In First Hour Of Presidency](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-would-deport-criminal-illegal-aliens-within-an-hour) Note: I’m not trying to turn this into a political debate; I’m just curious in working out the implications and implementation of the proposed policy, as set out by Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/13 "2016-08-28T03:56:59Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Because The Donald says so: [Trump Would Deport ‘Criminal Illegal Immigrants’ In First Hour Of Presidency](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-would-deport-criminal-illegal-aliens-within-an-hour) > > Note: I’m not trying to turn this into a political debate; I’m just curious in working out the implications and implementation of the proposed policy, as set out by Trump. Look: He is playing word games. His original supporters believe that an “illegal immigrant” is a criminal because he came here illegally. He’s hoping others hear “people who were convicted of some crime other than illegal immigration” when he uses the redundant “criminal” and “illegal.” He’s leaving the door open to just deport the handful who are sitting in jails serving time for some other crime. And like a Rorschach test, voters can project whatever they want into his words. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/14 "2016-08-28T04:00:47Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Thank you **Jonathan.** > > Thatnks for that link, **Jophiel**. So, in that case of approximately the same number of people moved, the casualty rate was at least 500,000. :eek: In the case of the partition of India: > **[Partition of India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Independence.2C_population_transfer.2C_and_violence)** > > The Partition of India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent and the creation of two independent dominions in South Asia: India and Pakistan. The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan—which at the time comprised two regions lying on either side of India—is now the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. T Th... > [@](#): > > thus net migration in the east was 1.9 million into India. The newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border. Estimates of the number of deaths vary, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 2,000,000.[1][3][69] > > Lawrence James observed that, “‘Sir Francis Mudie, the governor of West Punjab, estimated that 500,000 Muslims died trying to enter his province, while the British high commissioner in Karachi put the full total at 800,000…This makes nonsense of the claim by Mountbatten and his partisans that only 200,000 were killed’ [James 1998: 636]”.[70] As for the “Operation Wetback” from 1954 that Trump wants to emulate, the numbers were likely less than a million deported as historians point out that the numbers reported then were exaggerations. > **[Hoover, Truman & Ike: Mass Deporters? - FactCheck.org](https://www.factcheck.org/2010/07/hoover-truman-ike-mass-deporters/)** > > Q: Did Eisenhower deport 13 million illegal immigrants? Did Hoover and Truman use mass deportations to open jobs for U.S. citizens? A: No. Nothing close to 13 million persons were deported during any administration. All three of these presidents... And even then there were reports of several deaths among those deported. Most in the Mexican deserts where the deportation trucks dumped Mexicans far away from the US border to discourage them from crossing the frontier again. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/15 "2016-08-28T04:07:09Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > What about the population exchange between India and Pakistan? was it comparable? That wasn’t exactly “forced” in the sense of the OP though, was it? Lots of them were fleeing religious violence, but there wasn’t any centralized authority rounding them up and expelling them. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/16 "2016-08-28T05:57:37Z")
There was the African slave trade that relocated around eleven million people to the Americas. But that’s probably a precedent Trump will want to avoid. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/17 "2016-08-28T07:19:54Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Just trying to get some context here. (We’re in GQ, so I’ll try to avoid politics, and stick to historical context.) I don’t think it’s useful to compare Trump’s proposed deportation to _any_ other forced deportations in history. For one reason, most of the other deportations listed in this thread forced people to move to places they had never been before. Trump’s proposal would be deporting people back to places where they have close family ties. And since we are looking for historical context, let’s not forget that this is, after all, America in the 21st century.It’s pretty much impossible for Trump’s idea to be carried out. But it it were, it would be done similiar to the raid in [Postville Iowa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postville_raid) in 2008. > [@](#): > > The raid was the largest single raid of a workplace in U.S. history, and resulted in nearly 400 arrests of immigrant workers . …The arrested workers were taken to a nearby fairground, , where they were charged with aggravated identity theft, a criminal offense that carries a mandatory two years sentence, and briefed on their rights and options. The immigrant workers were offered a plea agreement in exchange for a guilty plea to lesser charges. 297 accepted the agreement and pleaded guilty to document fraud. In an expedited procedure known as “fast track”, hearings were scheduled over the course of the following three days, in which the judges took guilty pleas from the defendants, who were bound by handcuffs at the wrists as well as chains from their upper torso to their ankles, in groups of ten, and sentenced them immediately, five at a time. Most of the workers were sentenced to five months in prison and were deported afterwards. But more importantly…in addition to the illegal immigrants, several _managers_ were also arrested. And when Trump starts arresting white people…well…that’s _scary!!!_🙂 So if we are looking for historical context, the best place to look is not at deportations that took place 50 or 100 years ago. Let’s take this recent bit of history as the best comparison. If Trump’s idea was somehow actually carried out…it would probably work the same way as in Iowa. It’s possible to imagine 50 simultaneous raids being carried out on the same day, one in each state. Each one with arrests of a couple hundred immigrants, and a dozen (white) business owners. That would send a signal to the immigrants…and to their employers…that the game is over. Then over the course of a year or two, let Greyhound do the rest of the work, and make a nice profit (Trump likes profits! 🙂 ) as people take to the highways south. (disclaimer: I am _NOT_ advocating this policy. I’m just trying to make a GQ-worthy speculation about how it could be done, and be done differently than any other deportation in history. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/18 "2016-08-28T07:22:07Z")
About 2 million Greeks and Turks were “exchanged” in 1922/3 after Atatürk’s army retook territories in Asia Minor. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/19 "2016-08-28T10:20:58Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > In sheer numbers it would be the largest such expulsion. But as a proportion of population the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain in the early 17th century ( where disputably as much as 4% of the combined population of the Spanish crown and maybe a third of Valencia’s population was lost ) and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the early 20th century would be actions of comparable scope. Multiple expulsions of Jews as well, at different times and from many European locations. Those who could would move in with relatives… wasn’t there some guy who got to power, in part, complaining about those immigrants from the East? Many of the relocations and expulsions mentioned involved less than 11M people, but then, they weren’t from a country with over 300M or in a planet with over 7B. The expulsion of the moriscos was followed by a much-different relocation. Ferdinand of Aragon claimed the throne of Navarre, civil war, invasion of Castillian troops under his pay… but no matter how many troops and how many battles, there were still a lot of Navarrese who said that he was not the king, period. He gave land in the Levante (current regions of Pais Valenciano and Murcia) to people who were, in fact, his opponents. OK, so you have the choice of staying home on your square handspan of ancestral land or you can move to a place where rumor says it does not snow, and a much nicer tract of land… damn… uhm… Lots of Navarrese lastnames in Murcia and Alicante, and several towns and villages founded during those years with names that yell “Navarre”; the most evident and well-known one, San Javier. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224/20 "2016-08-28T11:09:08Z")
The Barbarian tribes, moving West, around the decline of the Western Roman Empire. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-other-forced-relocations-of-more-than-11-million-people-have-occurred-in-history/764224.md?page=2)