http://bccla.org/events/2014/04/statelessness-deportation-deepan-budlakoti-speaks/

May 14th, 2014, 7 PM at the YWCA Hotel (733 Beatty Street, Vancouver).

For years, Deepan Budlakoti has been fighting deportation. This isn’t just a simple deportation case, it’s complicated by the fact that Deepan was born and raised in Canada – the only home he’s ever known. He spent his life under the assumption that he is a Canadian citizen, but the Canadian government is attempting to revoke his citizenship and deport him to his parents’ native India arguing that his Canadian birth certificate and passport were issued “in error.”
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This morning NOII- Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories  joined over 10 cities in a National  banner-drop day of action in solidarity with Deepan Budlakoti in his fight against double punishment and to restore his citizenship.

We stands in solidarity with Deepan in his struggle for status and dignity. We continue to fight alongside all migrant communities in resisting racist immigration policies and systems that exploit and dehumanize migrants.

End double punishment! Stop the deportations! Status for all!

For more information about Deepan’s story and today’s actions visit www.justicefordeepan.org

END IMMIGRATION DETENTION!
Not One More Death, Not One More Detention, Not One More Deportation.

The recent tragic and shameful news of Lucia Vega Jimenez’s death while under Canadian Border Services Agency’s (CBSA) custody in a migrant detention center has left us all reeling and outraged. Lucia was a 42-year old Mexican migrant who worked in Vancouver as a hotel worker. She was arrested on December 1, 2013 for an unpaid bus ticket and then transferred to immigration authorities, who incarcerated her at a provincial prison pending deportation. On December 20 she hung herself in the bathroom of the Vancouver Airport detention center and eight days later died in hospital, while still under CBSA custody. CBSA kept her death a secret, and to date neither a full coroner’s inquest nor an independent investigation has been ordered.

Since September 17, 2013 hundreds of migrant detainees incarcerated at the Centre East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario have been on strike, including boycotting their detention hearings and hunger-strike (two men were on hunger strike for over sixty days). The detainees are calling for their release and an end to indefinite detention and maximum-security incarceration. Striking migrants have faced reprisals with many deported, locked-up in segregation, moved to other prisons, and denied access to legal counsel.

These stories have brought some attention to migrant detention in Canada, but the reality is that migrant detention is shrouded in secrecy.

QUICK FACTS ON MIGRANT DETENTION IN CANADA:

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Lucia Vega Jimenez’s death is the latest in a series of suicides and deaths as a result of violent and exclusionary immigration and refugee policies.

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Migrant dignity, not migrant death!

Sign and share: http://chn.ge/1kavtbV

To:
Steven Blaney, Minister of Public Safety
Barb McLintock, BC Coroners Service
Lisa Lapointe, Chief Coroner
Luc Portelance, President of CBSA
Roslyn MacVicar, Pacific Regional Director CBSA
John Dyck, Metro Vancouver District Director CBSA
Wayne Easter, Public Safety Critic
Randall Garrison, Public Safety Critic
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Immediately order a full, transparent, independent civilian inquiry & investigation into the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez while under CBSA custody. We need independent civilian oversight & a comprehensive review of migrant detention policies. Cruel and punitive conditions of migrant detention, such as indefinite detention, as well as the new Refugee Exclusion Act that permits mandatory detention and a two-tier refugee system, must end.

Sincerely,
[Your name]