No One Is Illegal dropped a large banner which read: “Canada Jails Refugees” above Highway 1 in Vancouver/Burnaby this morning during rush-hour traffic. The group also stickered and plastered the offices of Immigration Canada with messages to scrap Bill C-4. The actions were in response to the reintroduction of Human Smuggling Bill C-4 that targets refugees for mandatory imprisonment and deportation.

* More photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nooneisillegal/

NOII-Van is also releasing NEW material for our members, friends and supporters to disseminate in this fight against Bill C-4:

1) Info flyer and poster (English) and poster (Multilingual) about Bill C-4.

2) Factsheet ‘Myths about Kenney’s Immigration Record and 10 Reasons to Stop the Tories’. Disseminate widely.

3) I am a Human Smuggler series updated! Harriet Tubman Poster, Sticker, Flyer and Irena Sendler Poster, Sticker, Flyer. JPGs are here.

The People v. Kenney
Freedom to move
Right to stay, and to Return
We are many.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Minister of Censorship and Deportation Jason Kenney have re-introduced Human Smuggling Bill C4 (previously Bill C49). This is despite previous Bill C49 being rejected by all opposition parties and hundreds of community, legal, health, human rights, and migrant justice groups. This bill proposes mandatory detention without review by the Immigration and Refugee board for 12 months; denial of the right to apply for permanent resident status until five years have passed since favourable determination of the protection claim; denial of access to relief based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, temporary resident permits or refugee travel documents for five years or longer; and denial of the right to appeal an unfavourable determination of protection claim to the Refugee Appeal Division of the board.

Under the banner of combating human smuggling and deterring the arrival of boats such as the MV Sun Sea, this is a bill that blatantly criminalizes refugees and targets them for imprisonment and/or deportation. By today’s standards, Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad would have been considered a human smuggling operation!  It is not human smuggling that need be combated. It is the violence of immigration controls and displacement that must be targeted, struggled against, and defeated. No One Is Illegal!

* Read an extensive backgrounder and action alert here:
https://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=4303

* Follow No One Is Illegal’s People v. Kenney Campaign:
https://noii-van.resist.ca/?page_id=4139

>> Scrap Anti-Migrant Bill C 4!
>> Release Detained Asylum-Seekers!
>> Right to Stay, Freedom to Move, Right to Return!

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