Borders

Excerpt from Canadian Tire Fire #65 Since Hamas’s October 7th attack, killing around 1,400 people and taking around 240 hostages, Israel has been carrying out a massive campaign of death and destruction on the Palestinian people through a brutal siege and military offensive. Thousands of Gazans have died, over 10,500 at last estimate , with thousands more estimated buried under the rubble of countless buildings collapsed by the bombings. Fuel has run out at many hospitals, worsening an already deadly crisis caused not only by the air and ground assault but also by the blocking of food, water, and fuel from entering the open-air prison. ...

From the territory dominated by the Mexican State, we sound this call for the First International Gathering of Anarchist and Antiauthoritarian Practices to take place in the borderlands of Tijuana, Mexico. We are organizing for the gathering to take place January 25, 26 and 27 2024, with the goal of agitation, solidarity, and self-organization of anarchist and antiauthoritarian rage against the borders across lands, the borders in our minds, and the emotional borders between us as individuals. As part of the anarchist legacy of confrontation, we have never invested any hope in the political spectacle of elections, nor waited passively for some rupture from “the masses,” nor expected the appearance of a clearly defined revolutionary subject to descend upon us and make the revolution or raise the consciousness of the bosses, the rich, or their lackeys. ...

Today, November 1st 2023, when the veil is at its thinnest, the dead in Gaza speak to us. We, the writers, are not Palestinian. We write this for fellow north american anarchists of a certain type. You’ll see yourself as you read. We also write this for the anarchy-adjacent, and for anyone who is interested. ...

Recent years have seen intense and conflictual debates within the radical left on how to act in solidarity with marginalised and oppressed groups and on the role of allies (a word to which many, including myself, prefer the term accomplices). There is no doubt that Indigenous, Black, queer and transfeminist struggles have deeply reshaped both vocabularies and practices, greatly enriching and complexifying our thoughts and struggles. These questions have simultaneously created profound disagreements, enabled new alliances, transformed relations of force, and led to scissions. Despite certain divisions, the particular context of the past years has at least established certain relatively agreed-upon principals, and I am stunned that we need to recall these principals now, as Israel’s war against the Palestinian people demands that we once again adopt a position of solidarity. ...

A banner was hung in front of the building where Mélanie Joly’s office is (225 Chabanel O., Montreal). Red paint was poured, and the list of the names of the Palestinians killed by Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza (produced by Palestine’s Health ministry) was left in front of the door of the building. Statement follows. Canada, yet again guilty of genocide It is said by some that Gaza is the biggest prison in the world. We fully agree with such a description, although it is obviously now a euphemism, since Gaza has become an extermination camp. Blocking water, food, medicine, electricity, fuel and internet to a population wholly dependent on imports and international aid, while carpet bombing them, can only produce one outcome. You can avoid the word as much as you please, but the reality is this : the Israeli government is committing a genocide, in full view and with your full support, Mélanie Joly, Justin Trudeau and the rest of the parasitic invertebrates that supposedly represent our will and our interests. ...

A coalition of non-profit groups who work on refugee issues are organizing a march in the coming days as an act of protest against the Safe Third Country Agreement. We wanted to take the time to share it with you here, in a spirit of critical solidarity. We know the organizers of the march have been working incredibly hard on this action, and too many of our members have known first-hand the violence inflicted by the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA). ...

Montreal, 11 June 2023 – The Solidarity Across Borders network has noticed an increase in people being called in to CBSA offices to start deportation proceedings in Montreal. In addition, in the past weeks, we are aware of two incidents in which the CBSA (the border police) came to the homes of undocumented community members. They were both under arrest warrants for not having shown up for their deportation. CBSA somehow found their addresses and went to their homes to arrest them. ...

Since the opening of a new prison for migrants in Laval Quebec in October of 2022, we’ve been consistently hearing from detainees about the terrible conditions. In-person visits have been suspended, while detainees are blocked from accessing their medication, have complained of being served rotten food, and many have continued to see their mental health spiral. All this in a brand new facility, that the federal government touted as a “more humane” form of detention. Now more than ever, it is clear that detention can never be “humane”, and only ending the practice of immigration detention in its entirety can put an end to these abuses. ...

A sudden extension: Without any warning, at 12:01am last Saturday, the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) was extended to cover the entire 9,000 kilometer border between the US and Canada. Deportation without any process: Under the STCA, any migrant caught crossing on foot or via waterway without a visa can be deported without any processing. Those who were coming via Roxham Road in Quebec are now being deported. ...

We denounce the death of migrants detained at the Detention Center in Surrey, BC, and at Roxham Road. We are, once again, infuriated and saddened to learn of the death of two migrants within a period of two weeks. The death on Christmas Day of a person detained by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) at the Surrey’s CBSA detention center in British Columbia was announced on December 27 by CBSA. On January 5, Sûreté du Québec confirmed they found the dead body of a man near Roxham Road, an irregular crossing of migrants between the USA and Canada. ...

In 1973, Pierre Elliott Trudeau enacted a regularization program resulting in 39,000 undocumented migrants living in so-called canada being eventually recognized as citizen. While there have been other regularization programs over the years, this was, by far, the largest one implemented [1]. You might have noticed that this large regularization program took place almost 50 years ago, by the father of the current prime minister, Justin Trudeau. And if there’s something that Trudeau can be relied upon, is to do some grand commemorative gesture for the occasion. ...

Month of Action Against the Migrant Prison. August 1-31, 2022. Despite years of concerted opposition, construction is nearly complete on the new migrant prison in Laval. If it opens, it will maintain and expand the government’s capacity to detain, surveil and deport migrants. It will also serve to force migrants to remain in exploitative working and living conditions. This August, Solidarity Across Borders will be holding a month of action to oppose the migrant prison, as well as to demand an end to all prisons. Join us for a series of workshops, film screenings, and demonstrations to assert: the only alternative to detention is status for all! ...