(From June 18-25, Solidarity Across Borders, a coalition of refugees,

migrants, and their supporters, will be marching from Montreal to Ottawa

to make demands for regularization on Immigration Canada.  The following

article seeks to explore and outline the analysis and politics behind this

march.)

Status, Survival, and Solidarity

Non-Status people and the politics of precarity

by Aaron Lakoff and Seth Porcello

Just a few weeks ago, Manuel, a 19-year old refugee, sat alone in a jail

cell in a detention center in Laval, just north of Montreal.  Frightened

and tired, he awaited his deportation back to Mexico.  It was one of those

freakish situations where one might rack their brain to determine what the

hell they did wrong.  In Manuel's case, it was very simple - he was a

refugee without status who chose to defy a deportation order.

        Days before, Manuel had been casually waiting at a metro station

in Montreal.  He was picked up by police who were on the lookout

for another young Latino male.  In the eyes of these cops, Manuel

was just another brown-skinned guy loitering in the metro -

already guilty.  After running his identity through the system, it

was ascertained that Immigration Canada had an arrest warrant out

for him, and a subsequent deportation order.  Manuel's parents and

seven siblings all live in Montreal.  But to say they 'live' here

is to use that word loosely, for they live clandestinely, part of

an endless pool of people forced underground because their number

has come up with "la migra".

        Manuel's case is more than just a tragic story of a young life

ruined by a deportation - Manuel represents the crisis that

non-status people face in Canada.  Every day is a gamble.  Every

day is a risk.  And if you survive, you go to sleep and go through

it all again.  This is the precarity that up to 400,000 non-status

people in Canada are facing, and it has to end.

        But for those unable to raise their heads above water for fear of

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), the tides could be

changing.  In Montreal, Solidarity Across Borders (SAB), a network

of various immigrant and refugee groups has emerged, and aims to

make this crisis public.  For seven days this summer, from June

18-25th, groups and individuals within SAB will be walking from

Montreal to Ottawa.  The walk is a big deal, and the demands are

bigger: an end to detentions, an end to deportations, the

abolition of security certificates, and a comprehensive status

program for all.  It will be a long march, but for all the

combined years that refugees spend living in the dark in Canada,

it is but a drop in infinity.

United in Struggle

Since its creation in 2003, Solidarity Across Borders has provided a

network of mutual aid and support, where refugee communities who are under

the threat of deportations no longer have to fight in isolation.  United

by their will to fight for the coalition's main demands, the communities

and individuals that make up the SAB network stand together against a

common obstacle: Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

     SAB also represents a natural evolution in the course that

self-organized refugee mobilizations were taking prior to its

conception.  This evolution is parallel to an uphill battle that

these groups have been facing in the last three years.

     One might say that CIC really upped the ante in the summer of 2002

when then-Minister of Immigration, Dennis Coderre, lifted a

moratorium on deportations to Algeria.  Suddenly, thousands of

Algerians in Canada, most of them in Montreal, found themselves left

hanging, vulnerable to being sent back to a country where a bloody

civil war has claimed thousands of lives in recent years.  The Action

Committee of Non-Status Algerians (CASS in French) came together in

face of this danger. The group was mainly created by directly

affected Algerian refugees themselves.  After numerous pickets,

demonstrations, airport visits, immigration office sit-ins, and a

family taking sanctuary in a church to avoid deportation, Algerians

in Canada finally won a set of special procedures to obtain status.

            Palestinian refugee communities across Canada found themselves in a

similar position.  Many of them were living here as stateless

refugees, but were still being deported back to miserable refugee

camps and military occupation.  Although a significant campaign came

together to challenge these removals, it lost some steam after a few

of the campaign's main organizers were deported.

        But if the Algerian campaign proves anything, it's that there is

power in numbers.  So when some of the organizers from the

Palestinian campaign approached members of the Algerian campaign in

2003 to join up in a common struggle, Solidarity Across Borders was

born.

            "Solidarity Across Borders is the breath of all of those people who

are being discriminated against on a regular basis, every day.  There

is nothing in this world like living illegally... Nothing," says Amir

Hodod, an Egyptian refugee and member of the Solidarity Across

Borders coalition.

Martyrs for the cause

            For non-status people, organizing in a group like SAB can be a

tremendous risk.  Among those who suffer the abuse and precarity of

our racist immigration process, the sacrifice of refugee community

organizers must be recognized.  Time and time again these organizers

have been deported in what can only be described as the most blatant

and cowardly attempts to break refugee rights movements.  This

targeting of immigrant activists must be recognized because it speaks

directly to how immigrants and refugees are viewed by policy makers

and enforcers.

            This view is one of a benevolent Canada, graciously admitting

foreigners who would otherwise suffer the misery and poverty of

whichever country they came from.  This view sees granting status,

however temporary, in Canada as some kind of sacrifice made on behalf

of humanity. It is this view that consistently dominates Canadian

immigration policy, as well as the language used to debate it.  The

idea that the country's economy and the economy of every other

western country would collapse in the absence of immigrants is not a

part of this discourse.  Nor is the ever increasing absurdity of the

differences seen between a citizen and an immigrant.  The fact is

that when immigrants and refugees speak out on the abuse and

criminality of their conditions in our country they are labeled as

troublemakers, agitators, and perhaps even ungrateful.

           The results of these predominating ideas are not hard to see.  Wendy

Maxwell was arrested at the International Women's Day rally in Toronto

and deported back to Costa Rica.  She was selling cookies for CKLN, a

radio station where she volunteered to broadcast the voices of people

like her.  Shamim Akhtar was deported from Canada to the USA in the

summer of 2004 along with her family.  Shamim was the direct

inspiration for the No One Is Illegal March On Ottawa.  A third

particularly striking case is that of Mohamed Cherfi who was refused

status in 2004 because he was not adequately "integrated" into Quebec

society.  Mohamed lived in Quebec for six years and spoke French, but

perhaps more importantly, had been a tireless activist and articulate

spokesperson for the Action Committee for Non-Status Algerians.  His

work and the work of many others including organizations like No One

Is Illegal (Montreal) resulted in a regularization program for

non-status Algerians.  Around 900 people were given status through

this program.  Of these 900 people, Mohamed Cherfi was not one.  His

exclusion from this program commemorates Canada's longstanding history

of political deportations, a history that goes all the way back to the

Immigration Act of 1910 which established "political offenses" as

grounds for deportation (Section 41).  Interestingly, Mohamed Cherfi

was granted refugee status on June 1, 2005 in the United States.  Why

the government of the United States would feel Mr. Cherfi had

legitimate grounds for a refugee claim when the Canadian government

had decided he did not is hardly a mystery.  It was a political

deportation.  His refugee claim was not the issue.  In an arbitrary

and abusive process, variation and abuse must be expected and

rejected.

            To return to the issue of how immigrants are viewed by policy makers,

it is clear from the cases above that immigrants aren't supposed to

organize their communities, they are not supposed to advocate

publicly for their rights or the rights of others, and they are most

definitely not supposed to win regularization programs. Immigrants

are supposed to be too busy working and enjoying the ambiance of

first world capitalism to do these things.  The fact that this

version of the story utterly fails to reflect reality is no surprise.

As usual it reflects policy makers' views that immigrants are no more

than the elastic and expendable labor force Canada needs to maintain

its fluctuating economy at peak productivity.  Humanizing that labor

force creates problems. It would make that labor force inelastic.

For one, the homicidal hiring and firing of workers doing the worst

jobs in the most heavily exploitive environments might be a real

burden to the economy if these workers then were able to access the

health care and welfare services that they need as a result.  But the

refugees and immigrants who predominantly work these jobs are often

in precarious positions with respect to the state and cannot access

these services for fear of detention and/or deportation. Without

access to these safety nets life becomes one of struggle, not for

success, but for survival in a potentially endless cycle of

exploitation.  This is the reality that refugees and immigrants face.

            Amir Hodod is a clear-cut example of a refugee who has become a

survivor of the market.  Hodod holds a masters degree in philosophy

from Egypt, and since living in North America, he has been shuffled

around from jobs such as a grocery store clerk, restaurant kitchen

staff, and fast food runner.

        "Being non-status means that you are starting from the beginning.

And you have to also accept the tiny chances which are given to you

by the market needs of society - to work in a specific kind of job,"

explains Hodod.  "The real chances for refugees are that they have to

do specific kinds of jobs, and they are threatened all the time that

if they don't accept these jobs, which can be very difficult, they

are expelled from the country."`

Thinking beyond 9-11

        Citizenship and Immigration Canada would like Canadians to believe

that all immigration policy dates back to September 11, 2001, and

that policy changes since then are relevant only in light of the new

terrorist threat.  This idea and its all-too-convenient implications

must be rejected.  In reality, the policies which are being

implemented today are often the same policies that have been

implemented in the past. They have simply been rewritten, revised and

resurrected.  The fact that they are being marketed as reforms for

new and troubled times is a reason for a good look through a history

book.

        For example, we find that the Safe Third Country Agreement (2002)

now eerily resembles the Continuous Journey Rule (1908).  The

Continuous Journey Rule prohibited the landing of any immigrant

not arriving directly from their country of origin.  At the time

this rule was created, steamships from India and Japan made a stop

in Hawaii, thus preventing those on board from immigrating to

Canada under the Continuous Journey Rule.  A steam line owned by a

Canadian corporation made the only direct voyage from India to

Canada, and was quickly enticed to cancel this service following

the establishment of the rule.  Rewritten, revised, and

resurrected we now have the Safe Third Country Agreement signed on

December 5, 2002.  This agreement prevents any refugee from making

a claim in Canada if they have visited a "safe third country"

prior to entry into Canada.  So for example, a refugee cannot

apply for status in Canada if he/she has ever set foot on U.S.

soil (a "safe" third country).

            Estimates predict this measure will reduce the number of refugee

claimants by 40%. We can reasonably assume immigration officials, who

yearn for the days of 1908 when stamping out immigration of

"undesirables" was straightforward, are hoping this estimate is low.

        Another shining example is the Head Tax imposed on Chinese immigrants

with the establishment of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.  Now we call

it the Right of Landing Fee (ROLF).  In 1882 the purpose of this tax (50$

per Chinese head) was to limit the number of Chinese immigrants, and

profit from those who were not excluded.  As the desire of Canadian

officials to exclude Chinese immigrants increased, so did the head tax

until it reached 500$ in 1903 (equivalent to two years wages as a Chinese

laborer).  If there was ever any doubt as to the intent of this tax, it

was erased with the introduction of the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act,

which decreed an outright ban on Chinese immigration.  July 1 is now

known to many Chinese-Canadians as Humiliation Day in recognition of this

racist history.  Although no longer legislated along racial lines, we

find immigration officials playing the same game in 1995, charging every

immigrant and refugee arriving in the country a flat fee of $975.  These

expenses come on top of normal processing fees of $500 per adult and $100

per child.

        The Canadian Council of Refugees released a report in February of

1997 studying the ROLF in which they assert that the fees are

"discriminatory, exclusionary, and racist because of the vast

variance in country and individual income around the world."  It is

also important to point out the very special hypocrisy of the

Canadian government which claims to accept refugees based on their

need for protection from persecution, and then limits the extent of

this protection to those who can pay the fees.  The United Nations

High Commissioner for Refugees has pointed out that no other country

in the world imposes such a fee on refugees.

            The need to ground our present understanding of immigration policy in

a historical context is not simply a need to call a spade a spade,

but more importantly a need to trace a firm and distinct line from

the origins of racist discriminatory policy to the fruits they have

born in the present day.  It is time to reexamine the hard lessons of

history that we haven't learnt.

Welcome to Canada - You are now entering a police state

             As the previously illustrated case of Manuel suggests, the issue of

policing is also of great concern to non-status people living in

Canada.  In Canada's war on terrorism, which often plays out as a

war against (im)migrants, some of the most draconian legislation

this country has ever seen has been laid out to facilitate

detentions and deportations.  The police have been given additional

powers, and often collaborate with Immigration Canada to nab wanted

refugees.

             One stark example took place on August 14th, 2003 in Toronto.  This

is a date that will stay forever in the memories of many Pakistanis

in Canada.  That morning, twenty-four men of South-Asian origin were

picked up in pre-dawn raids by the RCMP.  This was part of an RCMP

investigation dubbed "Project Thread".  The men were immediately

detained in a maximum security prison on the grounds that they were

a threat to "national security".  Even though all allegations of

terrorism against the detainees were dropped within two weeks of the

arrests, the detainees spent two to five months locked up before

many of them were eventually deported.  The RCMP, acting with the

blessing of Immigration Canada, knew very little about these men

except that they were Muslims, and that many from the same province

of Pakistan and were studying at the Ottawa School of Business in

Toronto.  One of them had enrolled in flight lessons.  This is

reason enough for the RCMP to sound the alarm bells and get out

their guns.

             Also of great concern to non-status folks in Canada are the now

infamous security certificates.   A measure of the Immigration and

Refugee Protection Act, Security Certificates allow the government

to detain non-citizens without charge, under secret evidence, for

years.  While the security certificate has been in existence since

1991, they have been used more fequently to oppress (im)migrant

communities in the post 9/11 context.  Since September 11th, 2001,

five of the six victims of security certificates in Canada were men

of Muslim or Arab origin.  Some of them are facing deportations back

to countries where they will most likely be tortured, or even

killed.

        Police and state repression now go hand in hand with Canada's border

policy.  It is necessary to resist this repression if the movement

for regularization is going to make any headway.

        In Toronto, the group No One Is Illegal has spearheaded a campaign

called "Don't' Ask, Don't Tell".  DADT is advocating a program where

municipal workers, including the police, would be barred from sharing

information about a person's immigration status with CIC.  If this

program were in place, not only would it eliminate the fear of double

punishment for non-status people (i.e serving their sentence for any

crime, and then being deported), but it would mean that people

without status would be able to access essential services such as

health and education without fear of legal repercussions.  When Ahmed

Nafaa, a Palestinian refugee living underground in Montreal, was

deported in late-November, 2004, he had been caught the night before

hopping a turnstile in the metro.  A deportation is a heavy sentence.

 There will be no justice for non-status people here until the police

stop breathing down their necks.

A March for survival

     As hundreds of people prepare to march from Montreal to Ottawa, they

will not only be staring down endless stretches of highways, they

will also be staring down the ugly, metaphorical wall that is

Canada's border.  For non-status people in Canada, the border is an

ever-present force - one that always looms in the collective

consciousness of an underground people. The question of

regularization is more than just a question of throwing open the

nation's borders it is an issue of human rights.  SAB is in a good

position to push forth its large demands as the group arrives on

Parliament Hill on June 25th.  And while Immigration Minister Joe

Volpe is hinting at implementing some sort of regularization program,

it will most likely be highly restrictive and inaccessible.  SAB is

advocating a full regularization program which addresses the inherent

dignity of all people, and demands real justice now.  Many of these

rights are being denied in Canada.  In this sense, the march to

Ottawa is a march for survival.

     Many organizers in Solidarity Across Borders describe the march to

Ottawa is an important step in taking back time - time that has been

stolen.  For every cop that has thrown someone in detention, for

every boss that has exploited an undocumented worker, and for every

bureaucrat politician that has refused to listen to the cries for

justice of whole communities, Solidarity Across Borders is fighting

back.

(Aaron Lakoff and Seth Porcello are both independent journalists with CKUT

community radio - 90.3FM - in Montreal.  When they are not writing, they

are fighting for a world without borders, bosses, or deadlines.)

--For more info on the march, go to www.solidarityacrossborders.org