In the News June 28

Stop the Deportations! Status for All!

Migrant Rights Network Launches Campaign to Achieve Full Status for all Migrants and Refugees

The Migrant Rights Network, a national organization comprising several migrant worker and refugee defence organizations, has launched a petition and organizing campaign to mobilize public support for permanent resident status for migrants and refugees living and working in Canada without status.

There are an estimated 1.7 million such migrants and refugees who live in a state of constant stress, insecurity and instability. The campaign was launched in the wake of a motion passed by the Canadian parliament on May 11 — M-44 Permanent residence for temporary foreign workers — aimed at expanding the pathway to permanent residency for migrants living in Canada.

The motion reads in part, “the government should develop and publicly release within 120 days following the adoption of this motion a comprehensive plan to expand the economic immigration stream to allow workers of all skill levels to meet the full range of labour needs and pathways to permanent residency for temporary foreign workers, including international students, with significant Canadian work experience in sectors with persistent labour shortages….”

There is an opportunity here to demand full status for all, the Migrant Rights Network notes, emphasizing that it has been the tireless work of migrant workers, refugees and those without status that has exposed the racism, inequality and arbitrariness of the Canadian immigration and refugee system.

The organization points out that “there are only a few tiny and difficult-to-access immigration programs for some low-waged caregivers and farmworkers. Most migrants are excluded. And there has been no mass regularization program for undocumented migrants in Canada, or North America, for decades.”

“Now is the time to make the federal government put forward a plan that includes all of us. Together, we need to insist that EVERYONE deserves equal rights,” they add.

Everyone is invited to sign the petition and circulate it, and to join in organizing to press the Trudeau Liberals to recognize the rights of all migrants and refugees in Canada for permanent status, rights and dignity.

Workers’ Forum calls on everyone to support this important work to ensure that all migrant workers, refugees and non-status workers in Canada have their rights upheld so that they and their families can live in dignity and security.

The petition can be signed here.

(Migrant Rights Network)

Workers’ Forum, posted June 28, 2022.