By Uzma Shakir; June 27, 2009 – The Star

The federal government’s latest moves to step up deportations of foreign workers have solidified Canada’s fall from grace when it comes to our immigration policy. Coordinated raids throughout southern Ontario since May have already led to the arrest and deportation of at least 100 undocumented workers originating from places such as Thailand, Mexico, China, the Philippines and the Caribbean. Many more currently await their fate while in detention, according to No One Is Illegal, an immigrant rights organization monitoring the emerging situation. Interestingly, no charges have been laid against the employers.

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June 24, 2009. Briefing to Congress Details Inadequate Medical Care in Detention, Separation from Family

(Washington, DC) – The US government should reform immigration enforcement policies that inflict needless suffering on immigrant women and their families, rights advocates said today. A former immigration detention center nurse, a former detainee, and a group of leading human rights advocacy and research groups will testify to Congress at a Capitol Hill briefing on June 24, 2009. Immigration detention is the fastest growing form of incarceration in the United States. On any given day, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds 33,000 immigrants in detention, about 10 percent of them women. Detainees include asylum seekers, victims of trafficking, survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, pregnant women, and mothers of children who are US citizens.

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Friday 19th June 2009, www.schnews.org.uk

A mass hunger strike by families detained at Yarl’s Wood refugee detention centre in Bedfordshire has been met with violent assaults on men, women and children by security guards working for Serco – who manage the prison on behalf of the UK Border Agency. The detainees started the hunger strike on Monday and since Tuesday prison managers have stopped detainees from speaking to visitors and reporters, and denied them internet access.

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By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ – Jun 17, 2009. Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — Ronald Soza celebrated his 10th birthday Wednesday with cake and a serenade by more than 100 other children and their parents. His own family: absent. His mother was recently deported back to Nicaragua. His father rarely ventures out in public in fear of a similar fate. Now Soza and the other children — all U.S. citizens whose parents face deportation — are demanding a say in the immigration debate. They are suing President Barack Obama, asking a court to halt the deportations of their parents until Congress overhauls U.S. immigration laws.

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Kristen Thompson, 28 May 2009, Metro vancouver

Fernando Navarro gets teary-eyed when talking about his 10 children, and the soon-to-be born 11th whom he might never meet. The Surrey roofer, who came to Canada 12 years ago from his native Honduras, has been ordered deported for what he says is a communication glitch from lost paperwork in Ottawa. “I leave (for work) everyday thinking of when the (deportation) day comes,” said Navarro, 29. “I don’t know if I’ll see (my kids) again. I don’t want to go to my country. I never expected this to happen to me. I thought I was safe here.”

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