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Statement by Migrant Rights Network:
In Palestine, attacks by the Israeli military resulted in hundreds killed, including 67 children. Last week, Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc released preliminary findings of unmarked and unidentified remains of 215 children at a residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia. On Sunday, an anti-Muslim hatred attacker killed a grandmother, two parents, their daughter, and leaving their 9 year old son in hospital and orphaned. These deaths are connected by on-going laws and policies that dispossess and displace people, and the racist ideas used to justify them. 130 residential schools existed in Canada, created by the Canadian government and Catholic church. At least 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were taken from their families and placed here. The schools were sites of abuse and neglect. Indigenous children were punished for speaking their languages and practicing their culture. Thousands never made it home. The Canadian government violates treaty rights and Indigenous laws to build oil and gas pipelines and continues to fight residential school survivors in court who are demanding the compensation that is owed to them. These attacks are being resisted, a powerful Indigenous movement is demanding justice. Learn more by watching this animated video on the movement. This is the same Canada that has exported $57 million worth of weapons to Israel, including $16 million in bomb components, since 2015 and has voted against 166 UN resolutions criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians since 2000. Palestinians make up the largest group of refugees in the world - 5.6 million of the 26 million refugees supported by the United Nations, many of whom live in Gaza, which was the site of Israel’s latest attacks. While Canada was created from theft of land, it now imposes immigration rules to deny rights to us. Primarily racialized and working class migrants are excluded from protections and benefits so that our work can be devalued for the profit of the super rich. This week also marks one year since the deaths of Bonifacio Eugenio Romero and Rogelio Muñoz Santos. Virtually nothing has been done to ensure no more migrant farm workers die preventable deaths. Already in 2021, at least 9 farm workers have died, 6 of them in federally regulated quarantine. The call for full and permanent immigration status is a call for an end to a system of deadly racialized exclusion from rights, protections and dignity. As migrants, we must demand an end to colonial violence within Canada and throw our support behind struggles for Indigenous rights and liberation. We are not simply asking for rights under Canadian laws based on colonialism - we must challenge the violent and unfair nature of this whole system. We must join together and demand that Canadian laws and policies do not force more people out of their homes anywhere. That is why on June 20th - World Refugee Day and Father's Day - we will take action for full and permanent immigration status for all. Actions are already being organized in Toronto (1pm EST, Immigration Headquarters, 74 Victoria Street) and Vancouver (10am PST, CBC Plaza). Join or organize an action on June 20th near you!
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A virtual presentation “One Common Story”, will take place on June 16 at 2pm EST . The presentation focuses on the stories of children in San Cristobal Chiapas, Mexico. In Chiapas, 98% of indigenous children live in poverty, many without birth certificates, without knowing how to read or write. Many other children are abandoned by parents who stopped here, on their way from Guatemala or Honduras to the USA.
The obstacles migrants face when they reach the Mexico-U.S. border are not new, and the pathways to legal status in the U.S. have always been complex. From the inception of the U.S. approach to regulating immigration, health considerations have been leveraged to justify policy. However, the health of the people who must navigate the U.S. immigration system is increasingly jeopardized by those policies. This session will highlight some of the characteristics of the U.S. immigration system that enable the unjust treatment of migrants and explore the manners in which U.S. immigration enforcement can exacerbate migrants’ health concerns at the border, in detention, and in the U.S. The panelists will also discuss the ramifications of the Center for Disease Control’s Title 42 for migrants, the conditions of border detention centers, and health abuses reported. |
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