The New York Times, July 9, 2010, NY Times

While the sweeps of the past commonly led to the deportation of such workers, the “silent raids,” as employers call the audits, usually result in the workers being fired, but in many cases they are not deported. Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies. The agency has levied a record $3 million in civil fines so far this year on businesses that hired unauthorized immigrants, according to official figures. Thousands of those workers have been fired, immigrant groups estimate.

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By TOM GODFREY, Toronto Sun, March 10, 2010 5:49pm

Canadian border agents are routinely using confidential banking and credit card information to arrest illegal immigrant account-holders for deportation, a Toronto lawyer says. Officers of the Canada Border Services Agency are using information from private banking records or credit files of illegal immigrants to target and arrest them, lawyer Guidy Mamann said this week.Mamann said the policy surfaced after a Toronto man facing removal to Costa Rica received two letters from his bank alerting him that the CBSA was searching for him.

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Mon Mar 08 2010, Toronto Star, Nicholas Keung Immigration Reporter

Women’s and refugee rights groups are demanding homeless shelters be declared safe sanctuary from removal enforcement officials, who recently entered a Toronto shelter looking for a Ghanaian woman in hiding. Shelter workers, residents and advocates worry that the February 27 incident at Beatrice House, a downtown shelter for women and children, would scare non-status women in need from seeking help in order to avoid potential arrests and deportation. They will gather Monday morning, on the International Women’s Day, at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre on Phoebe St. to condemn the action by the Canada Border Services Agency.

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November 01, 2009, TORONTO STAR

Foreigners in Canada on temporary work permits are being pushed into Toronto’s underground economy by the recession and a controversial federal program that leaves them vulnerable to abuse, a Star investigation has found. They include people like Tony, a 29-year-old Honduran, who left his Alberta farm job after complaining of long hours and lower-than-promised wages. He rode a bus to Toronto in mid-September with two fellow Hondurans from the same farm. He now works illegally renovating homes, and his friends work illegally cleaning schools.

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By No One Is Illegal-Toronto – Monday, October 5, 2009

Some believe that the Canadian immigration system is fair and generous. It isn’t. And Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney are swiftly making it even worse. They are underhandedly taking apart the so-called ‘objective’ points-based system. They are moving quickly to get rid of its ‘humanitarian’ part, the refugee process. In its place, they are setting up temporary work programs that are designed to push most migrants in to vulnerable, precarious and temporary jobs without access to services or the ability to unionize.

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