Join No One is Illegal-Toronto on June 7th as we rally at the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre to demand an immediate end to the raids, detentions, deportations of migrants, workers, and non-status peoples across Canada. This is part of a national week of action to demand an end to the attacks on migrants and refugees, the scrapping of Bill C-50, and Status for All!

On May 7, 2008, the Canadian Border Services Agency with assistance from Peel Regional Police raided SDR Distribution, at Dixie Rd. and Highway 401 in Mississauga.

As the police held the workplace hostage, Border Service Agents swarmed the building, checking IDs, harassing workers, and arresting 45 women and men, many of them visa holders under the Live-in Caregiver Program.

The raids took place the day after the Auditor General’s Report claimed that there were 41,000 “missing” undocumented workers that had to be immediately apprehended. This is the first such raid of its kind in Canada, and is a shift towards draconian US style immigration enforcement practices in Canada. Harper’s government has escalated its attack on migrant communities using police officers as its enforcement tools.

This can also be seen clearly in the government’s recent introduction of a series of amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act buried in Bill C-50, the budget bill. This undemocratic move sneaks in critical changes to immigration policy without proposing any of those changes before Parliament. Under the proposed changes, even if someone meets the necessary – already severe – criteria for a visa, the Minister can reject the application without any Court review. These sweeping changes will place excessive and arbitrary power in the hands of the Minister, including the ability to issue quotas and restrictions on the category and country of origin of people. In respose to an overwhelming negative reaction to these amendements, the Immigration Minister has recently been forced to attempt to spin these regressive changes, including launching a intense advertising campaign only in ethnic media to help get the bill through second reading within the next few weeks!

We say ENOUGH is ENOUGH! Stop the Raids on Our Communities! Scrap the Racist Bill C-50!