End Immigration Detention continues protest-strike movements
Sept. 17 marked the one-year anniversary of the ongoing protests, surprise actions, and concerts in an effort to end indefinite migrant detention. Protests commenced within the Central East Correctional Center in Lindsay, Ontario on Sept. 17 of last year.
The protests began with detainees themselves establishing hunger strikes, boycotting legal proceedings, and refusing prison services. Their primary demands are to have a 90-day limit on detentions pending deportation, an end to maximum-security imprisonment of immigration detainees, and an overhaul of the judicial review process.
The End Immigration Detention Network (EIDN) publicizes conditions that migrant detainees are living in for indefinite periods of time without cause or charges against them. All migrant detainees are held in maximum-security prisons, such as in Lindsay, often in 5×8 cells with appalling amenities. Following a flood at Central East Correctional, one detainee reported being held in solitary confinement in knee-deep water for days on end.
Migrant detainees are not only illegal immigrants, but also migrants with permanent status who have been living in Canada for years. Those detained also include children and families. Detainees may have committed a minor crime, such as overstaying their immigration visa, and then had their permanent resident status stripped, now finding themselves detained for years.
Mina Ramos, a member of Fuerza Puwersa, a migrant advocacy group, has been a strong supporter of the End Immigration Detention Network over the past year. She argues that Canada’s treatment of migrant detainees is unjust and unfair compared with policies followed by other members of the United Nations (UN).
In the United States, along with many European countries, migrant detainees are held no longer than 90 days before receiving a proper trial. Canada has no limit on how long someone can be held prior to deportation.
The Canadian government does offer migrants detention reviews, which enables them to have the no-limitation policy. The problem with the policy, according to the EIDN, is that migrants are rarely, if ever, released.
Ramos explained that the UN publically considers Canada a ‘Rogue Nation,’ and that they have issued an official opinion against Canadian immigration detention – the first such opinion in Canadian history.
Response from the Canadian government has been insignificant. Shortly after the protest began last September – fighting for the rights of 191 undocumented migrants – there was a small response from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The release of information to the public insisted that only two people were on strike and that these strikes had nothing to do with immigration.
Since these strikes, there has been little to no reaction or response from the federal government regarding these issues.
EIDN has recently published a thirty-page report on the situation and is striving to gain further support from the UN. The report, amongst other movements from the organizations, aims to take further steps towards the revision of the migrant detention policy.