Borders

Early this morning around 4am our friend and comrade Will Van Spronsen was shot and killed by the Tacoma police. All we know about what lead up to this comes from the cops, who are notoriously corrupt and unreliable sources for such a narrative. The story that we do have is that Will attempted to set fire to several vehicles, outbuildings and a propane tank outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma which houses hundreds of immigrants awaiting hearings or deportations. He successfully set one vehicle on fire and then exchanged gunfire with Tacoma police officers who fatally shot him. He was pronounced dead on the scene. We find his actions inspiring. The vehicles outside the detention facility are used to forcibly remove people from their homes and deport them, often to situations where they will face severe danger or death. Those vehicles being destroyed is only a start of what is needed. We wish the fires Will set had freed all the inmates and razed the entire Northwest Detention Center to the ground. And we miss our friend and wish from the bottom of our hearts that his action had not ended in his death. ...

Three years ago, the Canadian state invested $138 million to expand its migrant detention system, including plans for a new migrant prison in Laval. Since then, a multiform struggle has arisen to stop the construction of this prison. Companies such as Lemay, Loiselle, and Englobe have been continuosly reminded that anyone who chooses to implicate themselves in this project can expect major delays at every stage of the project. ...

On the day of solidarity with long-term anarchist prisoners, the BMW belonging to André Cardinal, parked in front of his private residence in NDG, was set on fire. André Cardinal is the Vice President of Lemay, the architecture firm designing the migrant prison in Laval. May fires burn for all that the worlds of prison and borders have stolen from us.

As we all know, the Canadian government decided to invest more than 56$ million into locking up hundreds of people in a brand-new prison in Laval, slated to open in 2021. On June 7th, we decided to take back this site of suffering and grief and transform it into a place of life and hope. Thanks largely to a donation of organic seeds by a Quebec-based cooperative farm, we sowed the 377,500 square meter construction site with 490kg of oats, peas and fava beans. This action builds on the work of other community members and aims to encourage further efforts to stop the construction of the prison. We also see it as a way of preparing the ground for other projects to collectively reappropriate this land for the common purposes. No prisons, no borders! ...

A few nights ago we stumbled upon an Englobe work vehicle. Englobe is an environmental engineering company subcontracted to perform site evaluation for the migrant prison in Laval. We smashed out the windshield, slashed all the tires, and spray-painted “No Migrant Prison” on the side. This was a spontaneous and easy expression of our anger towards all those involved with building this prison. We hope it prevented at least one worker from getting to their job the next day. ...

On May Day 2019 in Montreal there were four different demonstrations at different times and locations across the city. The CLAC (Convergence des Luttes Anti-Capitalistes) called for their annual anti-capitalist May Day demonstration to be held in the theme of “No borders”, in the context of the rise of the xenophobic far right in Quebec and the ongoing attept to construct a new migrant prison in Laval, QC. We attended the CLAC’s No Borders May Day, which gathered at 6:30pm at Square Cabot in the west end of downtown Montreal. ...

On the night of April 14th, we paid a visit to Lemay’s headquarters in St. Henri to make a contribution to the struggle against the construction of a proposed new migrant prison, set to open in 2021 in Laval, QC. Lemay is a major architecture firm involved in designing the prison. We shut off access to the building by gluing all the locks, smashing the electronic sensors that permit access to the building by key cards, and u-locking door handles together at multiple entrances. The garage doors were blocked by a combination of spike strips and smoke bombs, which were rigged to go off if the garage doors opened. We assume that employees and company clients had a hard time accessing the building the next day, and hope they will continue to feel the effects of escalating actions against them and others involved in the project. ...

One year after the deportation of Lucy Granados, Montreal community gathers to denounce racist and colonial immigration system and demand her return. Photos here! On April 13th, friends and supporters of Lucy Francineth Granados marked the one-year anniversary of her deportation with a rally at the Laval Immigration Detention Centre. One year ago, they had gathered in the same location in an attempt to physically block her deportation. ...

Like ICE in the United States, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) operates a deportation force, tearing migrants away from their friends and loved ones on a daily basis in the name of a colonial nation-state’s rule of law. Though brutal and well organized, this immigration enforcement system is not a faceless machine. The agents who carry out its vital functions have names and addresses, which is what concerns us today. Well, their names at least. ...

In the early morning of March 29th, the president of Sodexo Canada was visited at her home in Brossard. All the tires of the two cars in her driveway were slashed, their windshields were smashed in, and FUCK SODEXO and (A) were written on their hoods. Sodexo profits from imprisonment around the world. They offer among other things management services for private prisons and migrant detention centers, and cafeteria services for prisons. ...

On the night of March 19th, the sales office of Humaniti had its windows smashed and two Lowney towers were redecorated using paint-filled fire extinguishers. What do these condo developments have in common? They were both designed by the Lemay architecture firm, which is helping to build a new migrant prison in Laval, Quebec. Why not disturb the peace and quiet of the citizens occupying these luxury condos, whose wealth and comfort are founded upon the dispossession, exploitation, and imprisonment of those who have been here since before the colonization of this continent, those newcomers seeking a better life, survival, or pushed here by empire, and everyone who resists the prevailing order? ...

This week’s episode features two interviews with people involved in the struggle to stop a new migrant prison from being built in Laval, Quebec. Topics discussed include: -the project and how the government is trying to frame it as a “nice” cage. -senses of strategy and what might work to actually stop a project like this. -actions that have taken place against the prison, how they’ve gone, and what actions might be on the horizon. ...