[van-announce] Rally and Joint Statement on Stealing Citizenship Act

Thu Jul 3 10:24:35 PDT 2014

Radical Desi and People’s Voice rally against C-24 on Saturday July 5,
2014 at Surrey’s Holland Park (close to the King George Highway and 100
Avenue, King George Skytrain station) at 5 pm. Callout in English,
Spanish, Farsi:
https://www.facebook.com/events/763683193663306/

Share this image on Facebook (by Omar Chu):
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork/photos/a.271182039665513.63321.153945524722499/581921338591580/?type=1&theater

THE STEALING CITIZENSHIP ACT

Read and circulate:
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/no-one-illegal/2014/07/bill-c-24-stealing-citizenship-act

Joint statement by: Fuerza-Puwersa, Justice for Migrant Workers, Justice
for Deepan, No One Is Illegal - Montreal, No One Is Illegal - Ottawa, No
One Is Illegal - Toronto, No One Is Illegal - Vancouver, Solidarity Across
Borders

The Federal government has just passed Bill C-24, an Act to Steal
Citizenship (or what they call Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act),
which further dismantles Canada's already exclusionary and racist
immigration system. This law will likely come into effect in 2014 and
citizenship, which is already out of the reach for most migrants, will be
much harder to get and it will be easier to taken away at the discretion
of immigration officials. This Act targets people with dual citizenship,
make its harder for people to appeal court decisions, and gives
unprecedented power to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

This comes at a time when most avenues to permanent residency (which one
has to get before applying for citizenship) have already been severely
gutted. Since the late 1990s, more people have been entering Canada on
temporary status than with access to permanent residency. After a decade
of steady decline, refugee acceptances (which represent less than 0.1% of
the world's refugees) hit a historic low last year. This trend is largely
due to the Refugee Exclusion Act that legally discriminates based on
nationality. In addition, family reunification has become harder with
increased restrictions on sponsorship of spouses, parents, and
grandparents. The Stealing Citizenship Act adds to the litany of
destructive immigration changes in recent years that makes citizenship and
permanent residency more unattainable than ever.

Citizenship will be harder to get because The Stealing Citizenship Act will:

- give government officials unprecedented authority to deny citizenship if
they suspect that an applicant might not reside in Canada in the future,
which can be done on an extremely arbitrary basis;

-extend the formal residency requirement (currently the requirement is 3-4
years but applicants usually wait 4-6 years to get citizenship due to
government delay);

- make it harder for students, workers, and refugees to become citizens
(time spent living in Canada prior to their permanent residency will be
disregarded);

- remove the right to appeal to the Federal Court and the right to appeal
Federal Court decisions at the Federal Court of Appeal;

- triple the cost of applying and impose the costly language testing on
applicants aged 14-64 (used to be 18-55);

- decisions on citizenship will now usually be made by a civil servant as
opposed to a neutral third party Judge.

Citizenship will be easier to take away because Bill C-24 will:

- remove the right to an oral hearing before an independent judge
(replaced by a written review);

- discriminate against naturalized citizens by making their status easier
to revoke;

- legalize 'double punishment' of dual citizens (in addition to serving
their time for criminal convictions, their citizenship can now also be
revoked);

- grant officials the power to strip citizenship for crimes committed
outside of Canada.

Though The Stealing Citizenship Act introduces extremely disturbing
changes to Canada's immigration system, most migrants are already excluded
from the possibility of ever gaining citizenship in Canada. Granting
citizenship to the privileged few is part of a racist immigration system
that is designed to exploit and exclude predominantly poor migrants of
colour. Critically, we must recognize the complicity of the Canadian state
in forcing people to migrate from the global South and dispossessing
Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. For the 300,000 people entering
Canada each year on exploitative temporary work programs and the 500,000
undocumented people living and working across the country, and the
thousands detained and deported, citizenship is already out of reach. And
now, for the migrants who gained the privilege of citizenship and what was
once 'permanent', that might also be stripped away.

Canada's immigration system is racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic,
classist and exclusionary. We need a full and comprehensive regularization
policy that would give full immigration status to all undocumented people
and migrant workers upon arrival. These changes must be accompanied by an
end to wars, resource extraction projects, imperial interventions, and
environmental destruction that create conditions of displacement. We need
a dramatically new way of imagining migration, one in which all people
have the freedom to stay, move, and return.

Status for all! No one is illegal!

-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork

-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork

-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork

-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork

-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork

-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork

-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork

-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism

https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork