The day of action is organized by the End Immigration Detention network, and comes a few days after the B.C. Coroners Service announced that it will launch an inquest into the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez, who died two months ago after attempting to kill herself while in detention at a Vancouver Airport holding centre.

The death has highlighted the need for a change to the Canadian Immigration laws as Harsha Walia, of No One Is Illegal Vancouver, told The Star “An independent, transparent and public inquest is a necessary first step to shine some light on the secrecy that has surrounded the tragic death of Lucia. However, an inquest alone is not sufficient to address the impunity with which CBSA operates. The devastating consequences of policies like indefinite detention, mandatory detention and administrative detention in Canada need to be scrapped.”

Walia also told the Star that while an independent complaint and investigation process is crucial to the civilian oversight of the CBSA, political and legislative changes are needed to ensure the agency is accountable and transparent to the public.

Canada is the only western country that has no limit to the time an immigrant can be detained. This is a stark contrast to many other countries, such as the U.S. and those in the EU, which have strict laws that limit the maximum time to only 90 days. The Canadian procedure states that as long as the individual in question has a “monthly detention review meeting,” he or she can be detained indefinitely. This has resulted in some people, who cannot be returned to their home country due to circumstances outside their control, being incarcerated for over a decade.

Each city protest will be focusing on different issues within the current system of immigration. Toronto’s protest will concentrate on ending indefinite detention because, says  Tings Chaks, the Toronto protest organizer, it has the largest number of migrant inmates. The Star reports that according to border officials, roughly 600 people are on immigration hold at a given time throughout the year. Of those, it adds, about 10 percent have been detained for over a year.

The petitions demand four major changes to be made to the Immigration Law that would make the system closer to international standards:

Freedom for the wrongly jailed: Release all migrant detainees who have been held for longer than 90 days.

End arbitrary and indefinite detention: Implement a 90-day “presumptive period”. If removal cannot happen within 90 days, immigration detainees must be released. Presumptive periods are recommended by the United Nations, and are the law in the United States and the European Union.

No maximum security holds: Immigration detainees should not be held in maximum security provincial jails; must have access to basic services and be close to family members.

Overhaul the adjudication process: Give migrants fair and full access to legal aid, bail programs and pro bono representation.

We hope the petitions will be enough to convince the government that change is needed, so more extreme protests, such as the 191 migrant detainees who went on hunger strike last year, will no longer be necessary.

The Force Four Entertainment-produced series, called “Border Security: Canada’s Front Line” is currently on season two and has not yet been cancelled. Thankfully, though, the common sense of others won out in regards to one particularly exploitative episode.

The filming of a March 13 Vancouver construction site raid and the arrests of eight migrant workers will not air as part of the series. Also, there are now restrictions on where cameras are allowed. Filming is done away from the border and kept on the inland enforcement of those with “serious criminality.”

A memo from CBSA cites, “negative public response may continue,” as the reason for the episode’s cancellation. Such negative public response includes: Amnesty International, BC Civil Liberties Association, LeadNow, Council of Canadians, No One Is Illegal and the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), all of which have spoken out against the series, and wish for its cancellation. Thompson’s petition on change.org has over 24,000 signatures and an open letter addressed “To Force Four Entertainment, Shaw Media, Global BC, National Geographic, Canadian Border Services Agency, and all other producers, financiers, and broadcasters of Border Security: Canada’s Front Line,” has garnered 250 signatures from media professionals.

Diana Thompson, wife to Tulio Renan Hernandez , a worker who has been deported to Honduras told the activist group No One is Illegal: “We all feel extremely relieved by the news and are grateful to everyone who spoke out. We want this episode and the whole show cancelled.”

Picture from Diana Thompson's Change.org petition

The show, which follows CBSA, has been criticized for exploiting the confusion and language barriers of people. Or as the Border Security site says, “From confused visitors to phony immigrants.” National Geographic gets more dramatic while describing this trashy TV, “Passengers react in a variety of unpredictable ways—they lie, argue, play the victim, plead ignorance and even threaten legal action.  But they are no match for the investigative tactics of the CBSA officers.  After all, the law is on their side.”

Concerns about the show regard harming not only the dignity of fellow human beings but in some cases putting them further in harm’s way. A letter addressed to Toews from the CBA explains that those seeking refuge for themselves and their family may be endangered further, having their faces filmed for television. The letter also says what many are worried about: “We question whether those foreign nationals participating in the filming can be considered to have provided free and informed consent.”

Though people are asked to sign a waiver, they are filmed first, then asked while they are detained. Language barriers, confusion and fear that not signing will affect their release factor before signing.

Force Four Entertainment released a statement after the raid, saying they were being mis-characterized and that the show was not exploitative tabloid television but a documentary about the CBSA. However the letter originally sent to Toews for approval wasn’t trumpeting education but sensationalism calling the project a, “documentary-style reality television series.” The letter, fit for Tory propaganda continues, “It would be a valuable opportunity to promote important messages about Canada’s commitment to border security to give profile to the agency as a professional and effective law enforcement organization.” And so the show was approved and funded by our federal government.

Josh Patterson, executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association also appealed to Parliament Hill at a Vancouver news conference in March, “The federal government must respect the rights of every person it deals with, regardless of their immigration status.”

The show airs Mondays at 8 and 8:30 on the National Geographic Channel. For now.

The Toronto City council passed Access Without Fear yesterday, a motion that gives basic rights to people without full immigration status. This makes Toronto the first sanctuary city in Canada, joining 31 American cities that have laws protecting non-documented immigrants.

The motion affects about 400,000 migrant people living in Toronto who can’t depend on services like health care, food banks, women’s shelters, or public education for their children. These are people who pay property and sales taxes that help fund the services they can’t freely access. Often, non-status migrants avoid accessing these services for fear of getting denied, and worse—detained or deported.

Although most councillors supported the motion (38-2), Denzil Minnan-Wong lashed out against Access Without Fear, with comments like, “They should be removed, we should not encourage them, we should not help them, we should not facilitate them.” Minnan-Wong, whose father was an immigrant from China, went on to say “They are an insult to every immigrant who played by the rules to get into this country.”

Lest we forget, Canada as we know was conceived from undocumented migrants.

Other councillors (and live tweet-ers) shot back against Minnan-Wong, with Councillor Gord Perks calling the statements heinous and ugly, and Councillor Paula Fletcher saying the language had “a racist edge”.

A wave of rejoicing tweets flooded the hashtag #AccessWithoutFear. But (yes, it’s Friday and yes, this is definitely a win), keep in mind that nothing has actually changed yet. Passing the motion is just the start.

The Solidarity City Network, the advocacy group that put forth motion CD 18.5, reminded us of that with this statement:

You called, wrote, met, and pressured your Councillors and they were forced to listen. The first step is complete, and we have a new mission for you. We need you to go out and make sure that Toronto services are now actually accessible. Sign up here and we will get in touch with you on exactly how. There is a lot of work still to be done, and together we will make it happen.

City Hall instructed Chris Brillinger, executive director, social development, finance and administration to put together a report on how to improve access to services without fear including training, a complaints protocol, and a communications blitz by September 2013. That means we need to spend the next six months ensuring the right recommendations get on this report and that these recommendations actually pass at City Hall after that.

Syed Hussan, an organizer for the Solidarity City Network and an undocumented immigrant said it best by simply tweeting, “Tonight we celebrate this win. Tomorrow we struggle anew.”

Protesters against the G20 in Toronto. Photo by Jesse Mintz.

From June 25–27, the world’s most influential political and economic leaders will descend upon Muskoka and Toronto for the G8 and G20 summits. Joining them will be thousands of protesters advocating everything from anti-globalization to climate justice.

If you want to get in on the dissent, check out this advice for emerging activists from Mike Hudema, the man behind Greenpeace’s “Stop the Tar Sands” campaign and someone who’s no stranger to direct action.

Connect…with people you trust. Attend activist training camps, join a Facebook group, and talk to local and indigenous communities to discover how you can support them. Good places to start are the Toronto Community Mobilization Network and No One is Illegal.

Arm Yourself…with knowledge. Educate yourself about the rich history of civil disobedience and all the rights we enjoy today because of it. Read classics like Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience or books by AK Press, an anarchist publisher with a great alternative bookstore.

Pack…protective shoes you can run in; heavy-duty gloves; shatter-resistant eye protection; clothing that covers most of your skin; a gas mask or goggles with a vinegar-soaked bandana for protection from chemicals; and noisemakers. Optional: rollerblades and a hockey stick to shoot back tear gas canisters—Canadian-style.

Be Aware...of the variety of tactics employed by diverse groups of activists. Some may feel that vandalism is warranted, whereas you may not. Decide beforehand what tactics fit with your personal convictions. And watch for police provocateurs who may show up undercover to incite violence and discredit activists.

Prepare…to be arrested. If you decide that you are willing to risk arrest, speak to a lawyer or civil liberties association beforehand so you know your rights and what to expect. Get a jail support person off-site who knows of your personal needs (e.g. if you need regular medication) and will be able to communicate with your lawyer and advocate for you.

Reconnect…once it’s over. Travelling to the summits is great, but make sure to also support causes in your own community. The old adage still stands: act locally!

Protestors march down Toronto's Yonge Street as part of anti-G20 All Out In Defense of Rights Rally, Monday June 21 2010. Photo by Jesse Mintz.

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network kicked off its themed days of resistance to the G20 on Monday with activists converging around a mixed bag of issues including income equity, community control over resources, migrant justice, and an end to war and occupation. It’s an ambitious start­ for the week-long campaigns. On their own, each issue is complex. So wouldn’t combining them create one massively hopeless problem? Not necessarily.

Uniting the struggles sends a clear message:  justice for one means justice for all. Organizing in solidarity weaves together the various conditions of oppression and injustice affecting populations around the world. It gives us a deeper understanding of these conditions, and how to act against them.

In effect, you can’t talk about income equity without addressing migrant justice. The fact is, so-called developed states have built their economies on the labour of underpaid and overworked “temporary” migrant labourers. A recent Stats Can report suggests that throughout the 31 countries that make up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (compare these to the countries that have ratified or signed the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families, or to the G20 roster for that matter), the “temporary migration of foreign workers has increased by 4 percent to 5 percent per year since 2000.”

The same report states that over 94,000 non-permanent residents worked in Canada full time (30 hours per week or more) in 2006. Many came to this country as part of temporary foreign worker programs, such as the Live-in Caregiver Program or the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program. Activists, academics, journalists, filmmakers, politicians—pretty much everyone—have denounced the current state of both programs for their exploitative policies, racist legacies and harmful social effects. And it only seems to be getting worse for migrant workers as third-party recruiters become increasingly popular.

The fact that business is booming for recruiters means there’s a pool of people willing to put up whatever money they have for the promise of work abroad.  And here’s where we connect the dots from migrant justice to ending war and occupation and restoring control of resources to the people—what has compelled, and continues to compel, the estimated 214 million migrants of the world to leave their home countries in the first place? That’s what migrant justice group No One Is Illegal wants us to think about:

Government and public discourse fails to address root causes of forced migration. On the one hand, because of free trade policies—including Canadian free trade agreements—and structural adjustment programs, governments throughout the global South have been forced to adopt neoliberal policies that have restructured and privatized their land and services, resulting in the displacement of urban and rural workers and farmers. On the other hand, capital mobility has led corporations to create millions of low-wage jobs and to seek vulnerable workers to fill them, both in sweatshops in the global South and exploitable labour sectors in the global North.

Sure, not all migrant workers are explicitly forced to come to Canada as a labourer, as one analyst with the Fraser Institute griped in an interview with The Dominion, but then again lots of people are. Forced migrants are refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and trafficked people, as well as survivors of developmental displacement, environmental and manufactured disasters.

Huge construction projects like dams, roads and airports squeeze people out of their homes. Stephen Castles, the former Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, writes that many of these initiatives are funded by the World Bank and displace as many as 10 million people annually. Though World Bank offers compensation for resettlement, Castles concludes:

Millions of development displacees experience permanent impoverishment, and end up in a situation of social and political marginalization.

People displaced by environmental change, by industrial accidents, and toxins generally face similar fates.

That’s why war and conflict, immigration and refugee flows, jobs and wages, and global economics are, together, a “focus” of protest. Far from being separate and unrelated problems, they’re inextricably entangled. And the solutions will be too.

At a protest against Arizona's SB 1070 law that allows police to demand proof of citizenship. Creative Commons photo by Flickr User Fibonnaci Blue.

Canadians like to feel good about our official policy of multiculturalism, and in general there’s plenty to feel good about. But as the introduction of the ominous new law SB 1070 in Arizona in April swept the news—a law that allows police in that state to demand proof of citizenship from people in public and detain them if they suspect them of being illegal migrants—Canadians seemed blind to similar tactics being deployed in their own backyard.

We have every right to condemn Arizona’s law, but we have nothing to be smug or self-righteous about. No One Is Illegal, the national network of migrants, refugees and immigration activists who have been doing some amazing work on exactly these kind of topics, issued an alert recently reporting that Canadian Border Security Agents are working locations in Toronto’s west end, stopping people, asking for identification, and making arrests, and have already detained more than 20 people who don’t have “adequate documentation.”

This kind of “papers please” policing is sinister and—while I generally dislike this kind of phrase—un-Canadian. (As far as I can tell, this hasn’t been reported by a major news outlet, which means so far all the reporting we have is from NOII itself.) Here’s their advisory:

Immigration Enforcement is stopping people on the streets, at work, and while shopping based on their skin color and accent. This is systematic racial profiling that creates fear in our communities. It is part of the social-cleansing of Toronto in the lead up to the G20 Summits. It is the same racist policy that is being opposed vehemently in Arizona in the United States.

No One Is Illegal-Toronto has received confirmed reports that further raids are being planned specifically in the St. Clair Area THIS WEEK. Latin@ restaurants will be targeted, and ID checks based on racial profiling may take place. We believe that raids on Bloor West will also continue.

This fundamentally unjust harassment must be opposed.

Read the full alert at No One Is Illegal’s website. I’ve also submitted NOII’s report to OpenFile.ca to see if we can’t get some more reporting on this issue.

It is because of cases like this that a group of activists is lobbying Toronto council to adopt a policy that would prevent city workers, including police, from inquiring about the immigration status of people seeking services. It would also prevent them from passing on information about immigration status to any federal or provincial agency. “We felt it was essential for a lot of people we were working with to be able to access services without fear,” says Sima Zerehi, a campaign organizer with No One Is Illegal.

Zerehi says the idea came about in 2003, after organizers heard of a similar policy in New York City and began to realize how many of the non-status people they worked with in immigration detention centres had ended up there as a result of trying to access city services. Non-status persons, sometimes called illegal immigrants, are people who entered the country legally but lost their right to remain here, either because their refugee claim was denied or they overstayed a tourist visa. Until they are ordered deported or granted status, they are stuck in a legal limbo, with no official immigration status. And with an estimated 20,000 to 200,000 non-status persons living in Canada—half of those in the Toronto area—Zerehi says it’s imperative the city make it easier for them to access essential services without fear of being reported to immigration authorities.

Campaign organizers say non-status persons are entitled to services because the Canadian economy benefits from their labour. “Communities without status do contribute in a positive way to our economy. There really isn’t any reason why they shouldn’t be offered adequate services,” says Zerehi.

Police routinely ask about immigration status when investigating unrelated matters, such as domestic violence complaints. “If, through the normal course of an investigation, we find people with various immigration statuses, obviously we communicate that to Immigration Canada,” says Sergeant Jim Muscat of the Toronto Police Service.

That’s precisely the kind of situation organizers would like to change. But they realize that even having a policy might not make a difference immediately. For example, schools in Ontario are required to admit children whose parents are “unlawfully in Canada.” Yet, according to Martha Mackinnon, executive director of the Justice for Children and Youth Legal Clinic, about 100 children were denied access to Toronto schools this past year, even though the school board has a policy of admitting non-status children. “We took action, and to our knowledge, everyone was admitted,” she says. “Unfortunately, I think that we need more work on the implementation of the policy, especially at a local school level,” concedes school board trustee Bruce Davis.

With the campaign still in its early days, organizers are hopeful. Mayor David Miller supports the principle that all city residents should have access to city services: “The general policy in our administration is that, unless legally obliged, city workers do not ask about immigration status.” But despite his tacit endorsement and the fact that a variety of community organizations and three city councillors have come on board, the city’s official position is that non-status persons already have access to some services, such as public health nurses and homeless shelters, and that the city is prevented by provincial legislation from providing other services, such as social housing. Under the Social Housing Reform Act, for example, every person in the household must have legal status in order for the entire family to be placed on the waiting list.

Organizers say their next step is to hold a public forum this fall. The sooner council addresses the issue, the better, says Cindy Cowan, executive director of the women’s shelter Nellie’s, who sees first-hand what happens when women at risk are afraid to call the police and why a policy is necessary. “It would reduce the fear,” she says, “and enable women to get the support and services they need.”