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Criminal deportation policy in Canada follows a cyclical rather than a linear or partisan pattern. Based on a case study of Haitian residents deported between 1989 and 2009, I argue that criminal deportation cannot be explained as a stable proportion of the pool of permanent residents, but rather in terms of the political attention it generates. A change-point analysis identified two separate political mobilization phases. During the first phase (1994-1998), the integration of long-term residents is defined as a political issue and is translated into legislation (Bill C-44). The second phase (2003-2005) is a new episode of expansion that reformulated the issue around the concepts of risk and efficiency (Bill C-11). Despite recent legal reforms designed to accelerate removals of foreign criminals (Bills C-43 and C-60), the arrival of the Conservative Party (2006-2009) coincided with a decrease in criminal deportations during the period under review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]