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!

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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]

A nonstatus low-income father of three died the first week of January 2014. He lived in the Lower Mainland for over twenty years, but deemed ‘illegal’ and without a work permit he was forced to work in the street economy. His three children were born in Canada, and are working and attending university. A few years ago he was diagnosed with a chronic health condition for which he received emergency healthcare, but was prevented from accessing full treatment due to his lack of legal status.

Last year, with the Tory government’s implementation of the drastic Interim Federal Health cuts to refugee healthcare, he faced even greater life-threatening risk. In the words of his daughter, who predicted that “Bill C-31 will kill my father.” No One Is Illegal organized and fought alongside him and his family and he won temporary status which reinstated medical treatment, but it was too late as his health had already deteriorated drastically. He passed away on January 8, 2014 and his service was held on January 25, 2014.

CP January 30, 2014

VANCOUVER — Many questions remain surrounding the death of a Mexican woman who had been held by Canada Border Services Agency at Vancouver’s airport, and the agency is revealing few answers. Lucia Vega Jimenez was taken into custody at Vancouver International Airport last month. BC Coroners Service confirmed Wednesday that the 42-year-old was rushed to the hospital Dec. 20 after she was found hanging in a shower stall at the airport’s immigration holding centre. Vega Jimenez was removed from life support a week later with her family present, Coroner Barb McLintock said in a written release. News of Vega Jimenez’s death surfaced in media reports this week, prompting civil liberties activists to question why CBSA did not disclose information about the death sooner.

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