Halting Deportation Through Protest at Home: The Political Remittances of Transnational Gambian Anti-Deportation Activism

The government of The Gambia, a small West African nation with high emigration rates towards Europe, refused to accept deportations from the European Union for over 3 years. This deportation moratorium announced in March 2019 was preceded by public protests in Germany and The Gambia. The article traces how this contributed to the halt of deportations. Combining scholarly approaches on migrant activism and remittances, it applies the concept of transnational political remittances, which links the activism's impact to The Gambia's recent struggles for democratization after dictatorship. The analysis reveals how the conducted activism traverses common understandings of both remittances and migrant anti-deportation protest. Through its multidirectional transnationality, it reached political influence on the domestic and international levels. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected among civil society, government representatives and current and former migrants in Germany and The Gambia between 2017 and 2024, as well as document analysis.