[van-announce] Emergency Rally .. Thursday April 6 (Vancouver)

[Harsha]

*please forward widely*


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EMERGENCY RALLY:
Thursday April 6
12:30 pm at Canadian Border Services Agency
333 Dunsmuir, Vancouver
For information contact noii-van at resist.ca or call 778-552-2099

Link to Map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=333+Dunsmuir+Street+vancouver+bc&ll=49.283596,-123.112707&spn=0.024355,0.085831

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URGENT: Immigration roundups!! Immediate response required! Please phone,
fax, and email the Minister of Immigration TODAY!


In a move that broke major headlines last week, Canadian Border Services
Agency (CBSA) closed Dufferin Mall in Toronto last Sunday and demanded
shoppers produce status papers as buses waited outside to detain and
deport those who could not produce papers. This racist attack targeted
primarily Latin Americans and is part of a mass deportation in Toronto
carried out by Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Citizenship and
Immigration Canada (CIC) over the past few weeks. Deportees were flown out
on two airplanes in the past two weeks.

Last Monday, agents of the CBSA harassed passersby downtown in a primarily
Portuguese and Latin American Toronto neighborhood, demanding status
documents. A report in the Toronto Star reports that “as many as 100
Portuguese households in the Toronto area will be receiving deportation
orders in the coming weeks.”

An urgent response is needed to stop the mass roundups in Toronto as well
as to challenge to day-to-day enforcement of Deportation Canada across the
country. In Vancouver, Montreal, and cities across Canada, the day-to-day
enforcement of detentions and deportations are ongoing. In Montreal Amir
Hodhod, a non-status Egyptian refugee, political dissident and writer -
and an active member of Solidarity Across Borders in Montreal- is facing
deportation this week.

As far as we know there have not been roundups in Vancouver or any other
city but an urgent response is needed to ensure that none take place and
to stop the roundups in Toronto that mimics a US-style enforcement
approach and to challenge the daily brutal practices of an increasingly
repressive immigration regime. Anti-deportation actions are also being
planned in Toronto and Montreal this week (for two recent actions in
Toronto, see http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org)

While all this is going on here, throughout the United States "illegal"
immigrants and their allies have organized massive and historic
demonstrations against racist and xenophobic anti-immigrant laws ...

- Stop the Deportations
- Status for All
- Solidarity with (Im)Migrants, Refugees, and Non-Status People!


URGENT CALL FOR SUPPORT: Phone, fax, and email the Minister of Citizenship
and Deportation Monte Solberg, and the Minister of Public Safety Stockwell
Day, and demand an immediate and full cessation of these racist mass
roundups.

Please phone repeatedly and ask to leave a specific message. Ask for
Minister Solberg and Minister Day to reply to your message. Ask the
minister to explain what he intends to do right now to stop these racist
attacks.

In your email or phonecall, include the following:
-CBSA and CIC must immediately cease these identification checks and
roundups which amount to racial profiling
-CBSA and CIC must release all those who have been detained in these
recent racist attacks
- CBSA and CIC must not engage in any further harassment, requesting
papers from people in the street, or identification checks on demand -Stop
the deportations of non-status people: status for all!


PHONE, FAX, or EMAIL ministers Monte Solberg and Stockwell Day at the
following contacts:

The Honourable Monte Solberg, minister of citizenship and immigration
Phone: (613) 954-1064 8 am – 7 pm eastern time
Fax: (613) 957-2688
Email: Minister at cic.gc.ca. (For a response, include return mailing address
in the email.)

The Honourable Stockwell Day, minister of public safety
Phone: (613) 991-2924 8 am – 7 pm eastern time
Fax: (613) 952-2240
Email: day.s at parl.gc.ca
Toll Free in British Columbia 1-800-665-8711


CBSA home page:
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/contact/listing/offices/office391-e.html


Background:

News Articles

CBC: Solberg stands firm over Portuguese deportations
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/03/30/solberg-060330.html

Global: Immigration Issues Heat Up in Canada, U.S.
http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/story.html?id=b8962577-78ff-4a69-8156-bd3068daff59

The Globe and Mail: Foreign Labourers Shown the Door
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060328.DEPORT28/TPStory/Business

CTV: Portuguese advocates speak against deportations
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060327/portuguese_deportations_060327/20060327?hub=CTVNewsAt11

The Toronto Sun: Illegal Workers Go Into Hiding
http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2006/03/29/1510583-sun.html

The Toronto Star: Ottawa, Portugal Hold Talks on Illegal Workers
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1143760212963&call_pageid=968332188492


The CBSA was created in 2003 under the Public Safety and Emergency
Preparedness portfolio of the Federal Government. See links and article
below for more information on the CBSA and CIC.

For more information on the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Monte
Solberg, see http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/minister-bio.html

For more information on the Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, see
http://www.psepc.gc.ca/abt/wwa/min-en.asp
For more information on the CBSA see
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/agency/menu-e.html


-Stop the deportations!
-Status for all!
-Solidarity with (im)migrants, refugees, and non-status people!



-- 
No One is Illegal-Vancouver
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The No One is Illegal campaign is in full confrontation with Canadian
colonial border policies, denouncing and taking action to combat racial
profiling of immigrants and refugees, detention and deportation policies,
and wage-slave conditions of migrant workers and non-status people.

We struggle for the right for our communities to maintain their
livelihoods and resist war, occupation and displacement, while building
alliances and supporting indigenous sisters and brothers also fighting
theft of land and displacement.