The website is a fairly comprehensive site, some navigation tips:
* Top menu includes extensive factual backgrounders.
* Blogroll below, categorized in right-hand menu, includes news and NOII updates.
* Large buttons on the right link to principles, photos, and campaigns.
COORDINATED AND JOINT NOII COMMUNICATIONS
No One Is Illegal groups (Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, London, Vancouver Coast Salish Territories) have some exciting news for our friends, allies, and supporters. We are now organizing together on our communications.
We are launching a single facebook page, twitter account, website landing page, and rabble blog.
Join us to to get up-to-date information about No One Is Illegal campaigns, statements, organizing and initiatives that you can get involved in to support migrant justice. You will also be able to get news stories in English, French, and Spanish from No One Is Illegal members across these lands.
** Three easy steps to receiving coordinated communications **
1) As of April many of the city-specific NOII facebook pages and twitter accounts will be deactivated so we are asking that you please like our new coordinated FB page and follow our coordinated Twitter handle:
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-> New coordinated NOII Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork
-> New coordinated NOII twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/nooneisillegal
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MEXICAN WHISTLE-BLOWER KARLA LOTTINI WINS FIGHT TO STAY IN CANADA
We are thrilled to share the news that award-winning Mexican journalist and whistleblower Karla Berenice García Ramírez, who writes under the penname Karla Lottini, has won her and her family’s fight to remain in Canada!
Karla and her family received a positive decision on their Humanitarian and Compassionate application shortly after a public campaign developed to support the family. Over fifty support letters were filed in the past two months from dozens of local and international organizations as well as information about how news stories covering her case locally were being picked up by the Mexican media, and hence increasing her risk if deported.
Today, on Refugee Rights Day, Refugee rights activists are occupying Conservative MP offices, Immigration and Canadian Border Services Agency offices, and dropping banners in SEVEN cities
UPDATES:
1) NOII Announcement linked here:
http://www.mediacoop.ca/newsrelease/10436
2) PHOTOS from the actions are linked here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nooneisillegal/
3) Live updates and pictures are being streamed through
https://www.twitter.com/NoOneIsIllegal
Please visit and share; you do not need a twitter account to access these.
4) Press release linked here: http://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=4789
TODAY IS REFUGEE RIGHTS DAY: In a coordinated effort on Refugee Rights Day, members of refugee and immigrant rights groups including No One Is Illegal are occupying Immigration/Canadian Border Services Agency offices in Vancouver Coast Salish Territories. We received lots of support from refugees who were in the offices at the same time, many with pending deportation orders, many unaware of the horrific impacts of the proposed Bill C31. Conservative MP offices are being occupied in Ottawa, Toronto, St. Catharines and Edmonton. Banners have also been dropped in Montreal and Halifax and Vancouver Coast Salish Territories. These actions are being organized to demand that the Refugee Exclusion Act, Bill C-31, be
discarded.
FOR IMMEDIATE NATIONAL RELEASE
APRIL 4, REFUGEE RIGHTS DAY
www.twitter.com/nooneisillegal
www.nooneisillegal.org
www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork
#RefugeeExclusion #noBillC31
BREAKING NEWS: Refugee and immigrant rights activists occupying Conservative MP offices, others actions in SEVEN cities across Canada on Refugee Rights Day, today April 4th.
Canada – In a coordinated effort, members of refugee and immigrant rights groups including No One Is Illegal are occupying Conservative MP offices in Ottawa, Toronto, St. Catharines, Edmonton, and Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories. Banners have also been dropped in Montreal and Halifax. These actions coincide with April 4, Refugee Rights Day, and are being organized to demand that the Refugee Exclusion Act, Bill C-31, be discarded.
Live updates and pictures are being streamed through https://www.twitter.com/NoOneIsIllegal
*** April 4 is Refugee Rights Day – YOU can get involved ***
Minister of Censorship and Deportation Jason Kenney has tabled Bill C-31, an omnibus Refugee Exclusion Act. It creates a two-tier system of refugee protection that mandates nationality-based discrimination, mandates incarceration for many asylum seekers, denies and revokes permanent residency for many who have already been granted refugee status, and violently targets and expels refugees and migrants from Canada. This Act also introduces intrusive biometrics data collection on all migrants and gives increased powers of arrest and detention to border guards. This racist and repressive new bill is a major roll-back on an already minimalist and exclusionary refugee system.
Learn more – Joint NOII Statement – Axe the Refugee Exclusion Act:
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/no-one-illegal/2012/03/noii-alert-axe-refugee-exclusion-act
TAKE ACTION:
1) April 4th is Refugee Rights Day. We encourage you to post on your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites about the Refugee Exclusion Act and migrant justice issues. The mainstream media and even many of us have been silent or unaware about this recent attack on refugee rights, so raising awareness is a critical first step. Tag and post to Jason Kenney, your MP and news channels. Share any and all of the links listed below (scroll down).
National Release
March 27, 2012
www.nooneisillegal.org
www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork
www.twitter.com/NoOneIsIllegal
“Conservative Party using No One Is Illegal to distract from anti-migrant record, Refugee Exclusion Act Bill C-31”
Canada, Turtle Island — Immigrant and refugee rights groups from Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver were brought up in Parliament yesterday [1] and targeted in a press release by Minister of Deportation Jason Kenney [2]. The Tories have charged that No One Is Illegal is “not simply another noisy activist group but hard-line anti-Canadian extremists”.
However as Sozan Savehilaghi from No One Is Illegal – Vancouver Coast Salish Territories notes, “It seems as if everyone who is a dissident and stands up for equality and social and environmental justice is an extremist in Harper’s corporate Canada”, referring to Tory government recently targeting Indigenous communities and environmentalists against Enbridge pipeline also as “extremist”‘.
Thank you to the 600+ people who participated and supported the March Against Racism. No One Is Illegal is honoured to be part of such a vibrant and powerful community of resistance. Included below are some videos, photos, and articles from the rally, we encourage you to please email, post, and share them in your networks.
VIDEO COVERAGE
* NOII video by Steph: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQii7Z9-yAw
Monday April 2nd from 6-8 pm. 1803 East 1st Avenue, on Commercial Drive. Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories
Dinner provided. Child-friendly space with children’s activities.
FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/290414864364765/
Building on our annual anti-racism march on the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination to highlight systemic racism, and in light of the ongoing rallies in front of the Blood and Honour court appearances, we would like to invite and gather with our communities for discussion and strategizing:
WHAT: March Against Racism to Commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
WHEN: Sunday March 18th at 2 pm
WHERE: Starts at Park on Commercial Drive and 14th, Vancouver Coast Salish Territories
Marches in other cities and communities this year include Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, and unceded Traditional Splatsin Secwepemc Territory.
WHY: March 21 is marked every year as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to commemorate the anniversary of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa when police opened fire on hundreds of South Africans protesting against Apartheid’s passbook laws, killing at least 67 and wounding 186.
According to Brian Peaslee, march organizer and member of No One Is Illegal, “Although we would like to believe that racism no longer exists; countless academic studies, statistics, and people’s own lived experiences demonstrate that racism is alive and well.”
Statement endorsed by No One Is Illegal Halifax, No One Is Illegal Toronto, and No One Is Illegal Vancouver Coast Salish Territories
Last week Minister of Censorship and Deportation Jason Kenney tabled Bill C-31, an omnibus Refugee Exclusion Act. This Act is racist. It creates a two-tier system of refugee protection, increases incarceration, denies and revokes legal status, and violently targets and expels refugees and migrants from Canada.
Under the proposed Refugee Exclusion Act, the following provisions will be established:
- Conditional residency for accepted refugees: Asylum seekers who have already been accepted as refugees and have acquired permanent residency but not Canadian citizenship risk losing their status. If the Minister determines that certain refugees no longer need protection, their residency status can be revoked and they will face deportation even after having lived in Canada for years. This abolishes refugee protection and permanent status for refugees. Instead, it introduces the dangerous concept of conditional residence for refugees, whose lives are already marked by trauma, precarity, and instability. This bill also grants the state the right to retroactively strip refugees of their status.
