A gathering was held outside the Toronto Immigration Holding Centre last Sunday to spotlight the abuses in Canada to undocumented, and would-be refugees and immigrants.  11 people have died under suspicious circumstances while being held in various prisons since 2000.

A gathering was held outside the Toronto Immigration Holding Centre last Sunday to spotlight the abuses in Canada to undocumented, and would-be refugees and immigrants. 11 people have died under suspicious circumstances while being held in various prisons since 2000.
Photo Credit: courtesy of No One Is Illegal

Protesting immigration detentions in Toronto

Immigration detention is not a phrase most Canadians are familiar with, but it is a growing practice that has resulted in the suspicious deaths of 11 people over the last 14 years, according to No One Is Illegal.

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On Sunday, November 23rd, the local chapter of the national advocacy group, organized a protest outside the Toronto Immigration Holding Centre to draw attention to the plight of the people held in this facility, and several others across Canada.

“Since when did being without papers become a death penalty offence in this country?”

In the company of the samba band, Rhythms of Resistance, family, friends and supporters gathered by the barbed-wire fence, demanding an overhaul of Canada’s immigration detention system.  In an interview with Global News, an unnamed  protester asked, “Since when did being without papers become a death penalty offence in this country?”

In an interview with the Toronto Star newspaper last November, Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson, Anna Pape, described detention as “an effective enforcement tool against those who seek to circumvent immigration processes, and is preventative, not punitive.”

Advocates say, however, that beyond 90 days, detention violates detainee rights under the UN Declaration of Human Rights.  Canada, as a signatory, is in violation, with some individuals held for as long as eight or nine years.

 “There is a crisis in immigration detention right now.”

Tings Chak, a spokesperson for No One is Illegal Toronto, says “there is a crisis in immigration detention right now.”

People are detained for a variety of reasons; some because officials fear they will disappear to avoid deportation, or be a danger to the public.  Others are held because their nationality and identity remain a mystery, and another group, because their criminal record in Canada causes their homeland to delay issuing travel documents.

Masoud Hajivand is being held in a maximum security prison in Lindsay, Ontario an hour-and-a-half drive from Toronto.  But each weekend, Pam Shiraldini, his wife, drives to see him in an effort to keep his spirits up as he fights deportation to his native Iran.  Deportation will mean certain death in his homeland.  CBSA guards got him as far as the airport on one occasion, when a suicide attempt halted the deportation.  His wife pleads for someone to reconsider his case.

In August 2014, a sting operation in Toronto, held under the guise of a routine traffic stop, rounded up 21 undocumented migrant workers on their way to their jobs. Condemned by human rights organizations for the co-ordinated effort of the federal CBSA and the provincial Transport Ministry it was was described as ‘racial profiling’, Ontario’s Transport Ministry has since announced it will not participate in future

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