EMERGENCY RALLY

Thursday April 6
12:30 pm at Canadian Border Services Agency
333 Dunsmuir, Vancouver

In a move that broke major headlines last week, Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) closed Dufferin Mall in Toronto last Sunday and demanded shoppers produce status papers as buses waited outside to detain and deport those who could not produce papers. This racist attack targeted primarily Latin Americans and is part of a mass deportation in Toronto carried out by Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) over the past few weeks. Deportees were flown out on two airplanes in the past two weeks.

Last Monday, agents of the CBSA harassed passersby downtown in a primarily Portuguese and Latin American Toronto neighborhood, demanding status documents. A report in the Toronto Star reports that “as many as 100 Portuguese households in the Toronto area will be receiving deportation orders in the coming weeks.”

An urgent response is needed to stop the mass roundups in Toronto as well as to challenge to day-to-day enforcement of Deportation Canada across the country. In Vancouver, Montreal, and cities across Canada, the day-to-day enforcement of detentions and deportations are ongoing. In Montreal Amir Hodhod, a non-status Egyptian refugee, political dissident and writer – and an active member of Solidarity Across Borders in Montreal- is facing deportation this week.

As far as we know there have not been roundups in Vancouver or any other city but an urgent response is needed to ensure that none take place and to stop the roundups in Toronto that mimics a US-style enforcement approach and to challenge the daily brutal practices of an increasingly repressive immigration regime. Anti-deportation actions are also being
planned in Toronto and Montreal this week.

While all this is going on here, throughout the United States “illegal” immigrants and their allies have organized massive and historic demonstrations against racist and xenophobic anti-immigrant laws …

URGENT CALL FOR SUPPORT: Phone, fax, and email the Minister of Citizenship and Deportation Monte Solberg, and the Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day, and demand an immediate and full cessation of these racist mass roundups. Please phone repeatedly and ask to leave a specific message. Ask for Minister Solberg and Minister Day to reply to your message. Ask the minister to explain what he intends to do right now to stop these racist attacks.

In your email or phonecall, include the following:
-CBSA and CIC must immediately cease these identification checks and roundups which amount to racial profiling
-CBSA and CIC must release all those who have been detained in these recent racist attacks
– CBSA and CIC must not engage in any further harassment, requesting  papers from people in the street, or identification checks on demand
-Stop the deportations of non-status people: status for all!

PHONE, FAX, or EMAIL ministers Monte Solberg and Stockwell Day at the following contacts:

The Honourable Monte Solberg, minister of citizenship and immigration
Phone: (613) 954-1064 8 am – 7 pm eastern time
Fax: (613) 957-2688
Email: Minister at cic.gc.ca.

The Honourable Stockwell Day, minister of public safety
Phone: (613) 991-2924 8 am – 7 pm eastern time
Fax: (613) 952-2240
Email: day.s at parl.gc.ca
Toll Free in British Columbia 1-800-665-8711