Borders

BACKGROUND The Canadian government is attempting to construct a new migrant prison in Laval, QC. The building, set to be built by 2021, would hold 158 people, including children, increasing the government’s capacity to control and deport migrants in a context of rising xenophobia and racism across Canada and in Quebec specifically. Though the prison is being billed as “more humane” than the current detention centre, it’s clear that aesthetic improvements will not stop this from being a prison: it will still rip people from their families and communities and be an integral part of the deportation machine. ...

Much of the ground may be covered in a thick sheet of ice right now, and piles of snow have been growing around the construction site for the new migrant prison in Laval for weeks, but that doesn’t mean the Canadian government isn’t hard at work preparing the next stages of construction for this monstrosity, nor that we should turn our attention away until after the spring thaw. ...

According to this article in a local Salaberry-de-Valleyfield newspaper from January 29th, the building facade of the excavation company Loiselle, located at 280 Pie-XII Boulevard in Saint-Timothée, was redecorated. The words “NO TO THE MIGRANT PRISON” can be read. The article indicates that this crime was committed with racist intentions, specifying that the company has no idea why it would have been targeted. We do not know the intentions of the vandals, but we know that a new prison for migrants is supposed to be constructed in Laval, and that this company received the contract for decontamination and excavation for this project. Is it not the fact of imprisoning and deporting more migrants that is racist? It’s only logical that the companies involved in the construction of this prison would be targeted. ...

Citizenship can only exist and be valued if there is also a category of others, those without status. For this distinction to exist, it must be enforced by the state, which has a number of tools to do so. Deportation is one such tool. Deportation is a violent process in which the state removes all agency from an individual in order to exclude them from the territory over which it asserts its authority. To accomplish this task, the state uses different tactics, one of which is detention centers or migrant prisons. Migrant prisons are used as holding centers prior to deportation. People without status can be arrested and imprisoned while they wait to be flown out of the country, sometimes to far-away lands that they have no relationship to. ...

Between November 23rd and Dec 7th, we are calling for autonmous actions to block the construction of the new migrant prison in Laval. Under the pretext of improving detention conditions for migrants, the CBSA has been given a huge government budget to develop “alternatives” to detention and to build two new migrant prisons. While the state uses words like “humanized” and “alternatives” to describe their project, we know this is merely an expansion of the prison and border systems. The so-called “alternatives” and the new prisons serve the same purpose: to expand the CBSA’s capacity for border enforcement and immigration policing, to imprison and deport migrants and to rip people away from their families and communities. One of these prisons will be built in Laval on land owned by the Correctional Services of Canada, ostensibly replacing the existing migrant detention center. Two architectural firms have been contracted to build this project: Lemay (based in St. Henri, Montreal) and Groupe A (Quebec City). Work has already begun on the site of the future prison. ...

When is the Laval Immigration Detention Centre slated to be built? The prison is supposed to be operational in 2021, though no official timeline has been made public. Where will the prison be built? The site for the prison is an approximately 23,700 square metre piece of land directly beside Leclerc prison, on Correctional Service of Canada grounds in Laval. The CBSA was reluctant to select this plot of land, noting that “the close proximity of the site to the existing high security institution is not ideal as IHC [Immigration Holding Centre: their euphemism for the prison] should not be perceived to be associated with a correctional institution.” This site was officially chosen in February 2017. ...

Montreal CBSA offices were shut down on August 30th in honour of Mr. Bolante Idowu Alo and of our friends, family members and neighbours who have been deported. Migrant justice activists blocked and chained all doors to the building and employees were not able to enter the building to carry on their work for two hours. We want to ensure that business could not go on as usual. Mr. Bolante Idowu Alo died violently at the hands of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA): we cannot let them carry on as though nothing has happened. We call on our communities to not only condemn this outrageous violence but take action to stop it from happening again. ...

Launch of a new website for the campaign against the construction of the proposed Laval migrant prison In 2016 the federal government announced the construction of a new migrant detention center in Laval. This prison, which is anticipated to hold up to 158 undocumented migrants, is intended to be built on Correctional Service of Canada grounds, right beside Leclerc prison, and is slated to open in 2021. While the Liberal government is attempting to spin this project as a more humane way to detain migrants, we call it what it is – a prison, and know that this is simply prettier window dressing on a violent system of imprisonment and deportation, one that keeps people locked in cages while tearing apart families and communities. We want a world without prisons or colonial borders, a world where people, not states, can decide how they can move and where they can stay. Stopping the construction of the Laval Immigration Detention Centre is one step in the struggle to tear down migrant prisons everywhere. ...

Refugees Welcome Caravan Wraps Up 3 Days of Outreach in Border Region from Coaticook to Huntingdon Canada Day Action Signs bearing the words “CROSSING HERE due to (un)Safe Third Country Agreement. Still on unceded indigenous lands” were placed at five different sites along the Canada-US border early morning on Canada Day. Photos: https://bit.ly/2tZJR2I [Facebook album] There are multiple sites similar to Roxham Road every few kilometers along Quebec’s border with the United States. In addition to sending a message of support to refugees and migrants who are crossing irregularly from the United States, this action was meant to encourage people living in the area to actively support them – to open minds and hearts, and, in a very literal sense, to Open the Borders. ...

At 6am on Tuesday morning, 20 March, CBSA burst into the home of Lucy Francineth Granados, an undocumented woman very active in the Non Status Women’s Collective of Montreal. The CBSA officers used completely unnecessary force, injuring Lucy’s arm, which is visibly swollen. Lucy is currently in the Laval Detention Centre and faces imminent deportation to Guatemala. A detention review hearing was held Thursday at 12:30, with a support rally outside. ...