As nations increasingly rely on the deportation of non-citizens to protect their national interests, this project responds to the need for a more nuanced understanding of the consequences of these deportations for individuals, their transnational social networks, and the communities and nations to which they are returned. This project will employ ethnographic methodologies to explore the effect of the social practices of deportees and the debates surrounding them on citizenship as a legal category and lived process in the Dominican Republic. Research will be conducted in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic for 9 months and in New York City for 3 months in order to gain a deeper understanding of the transnational impact of deportation.