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

7th Annual Community March Against Racism
Saturday March 22, 2014
Gather at 2 pm
March begins at Victory Square, Cambie and Hastings
Unceded xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ territories.

Family-friendly festivities! Bring your neighbours, banners and drums!

The International Day for the Elimination of Racism marks the anniversary of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa when police opened fire on hundreds of South Africans protesting against Apartheid’s passbook laws, killing 67 and wounding 186. Every year we join friends and allies around the world to mark this day and to speak the truth about racism.

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* Marking 2-month anniversary of Lucia Vega Jimenez’s death
* Honouring 5-months of historic migrant strike in Linsday detention
* Solidarity with Awan family in Sanctuary for 6 months

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Join us for a creative action!
February 28, 2014 at 3:30 pm
Downtown Vancouver Public Library
(Robson and Homer)
Coast Salish Territories
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In Montreal:
http://www.solidarityacrossborders.org/en/27-fevrier-depuis-lentremur-dune-eglise-un-piquetage-en-solidarite-avec-la-famille-awan-et-les-autres-luttes-en-sanctuaire

In Toronto:
http://endimmigrationdetention.com/2014/02/13/no-more-deaths-end-immigration-detention-rally/

From the historic strike waged by detained migrants to denounce their conditions at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, to the tragedies of Lucia Vega Jimenez and the Wajli family, to the courageous decision of families like the Awan and Figueroa family to take sanctuary behind confined walls, migrants across the country are finding themselves in situations of tremendous precarity, sometimes even resorting to death rather than facing detention and deportation.

February 28 marks the two-month anniversary of the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez’s while under CBSA custody. Lucia attempted suicide while in immigration enforcement custody awaiting deportation. She died 8 days later on December 28, 2013. CBSA kept her death a secret, and to date neither a full coroner’s inquest nor an independent investigation has been ordered. Over the past five years there have been a number of migrant deaths in detention, while awaiting deportation, or upon deportation. These include Jan Szamko, Habtom Kibreab, Walji family, Hossein Blujani, Lucia Vega Jimenez, Grise, and Veronica Castro.

February also marks the five-month anniversary of the historic migrant strike in Lindsay Ontario against endless detentions 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. Since 2004, there have been 8,838-14,362 migrant detentions per year in Canada. Over a third of these, like the detainees in Lindsay, are held in maximum-security provincial prisons. Canada is one of the only ‘Western’ countries to indefinitely detain people. This means that some immigration detainees have been unjustly locked away, without charge, for nearly ten years.

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A young woman arrived to the Lower Mainland to work as a domestic worker under the Live-In Caregiver migrant worker program. She worked for just over a year in the home of a middle-class family under abusive conditions: working over 14 hours a day, faced verbal abuse from her employers, and was forced to perform domestic chores beyond providing childcare. As in the case of thousands of other migrant domestic workers, she had little to no recourse and endured this until she could no longer and left the employer. The employer filed a police report and she was forced underground in order to stay safe from authorities and the employer. She continued to live and work underground under dismal conditions - including as a dishwasher and in the retail sector – and again, with long hours and less than minimum wage. Last year she filed a refugee claim in order to regularize her status and remain in Canada. However, she was refused by the Immigration and Refugee Board on the basis that she did not face persecution in her country of origin. Furthermore, immigration lawyers accused her of not fulfilling her required commitment under her LCP visa. She now faces deportation from Canada.