COVID

The situation changes quickly. Along with everyone else, I follow it avidly and share updates, watch our lives change from day to day, get bogged down in uncertainty. It can feel like there is only a single crisis whose facts are objective, allowing only one single path, one that involves separation, enclosure, obedience, control. The state and its appendages become the only ones legitimate to act, and the mainstream media narrative with the mass fear it produces swamps our ability for independent action. ...

In light of the pandemic of COVID-19, a rapidly spreading flu-like virus affecting the respiratory system, public health officials are increasingly calling for people to work from home, for self-isolation, and for social distancing (maintaining distance both between individuals and collectively, by cancelling large events and closing down busy public places). We felt it important to take this opportunity to speak to our friends, family and neighbours with precarious immigration status: those who can’t stay home from work; those who have no paid sick leave or who work at jobs with no health and safety precautions; those whose immigration status complicates their access to healthcare; those who are often employed in the cleaning and sanitary positions that are so crucial in this moment of crisis; and those locked in the cages of the immigration detention centre. We are also thinking of our Indigenous community members who are similarly facing layers of discrimination both in the healthcare system and everyday life. ...