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No One is Illegal Montreal is a Montreal-based organization has as its central message and goal, the responsibility to ensure all individuals are treated equally. As their motto suggests, “No One Is Illegal-Montreal is part of a worldwide movement of resistance, fighting for justice and dignity, and the right to self-determination for migrants, refugees and indigenous peoples” [1].
History
No One Is Illegal-Montreal (NOII), was founded in 2002. This organization was the first of all NOII groups to develop a website. The organization was created in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks to counter a range of prejudicial social attitudes, particularly those which caused a great deal of stress and inequality towards Muslims. Police brutality and immigrant justice were the other contributing issues that inspired the creation of their organization [2].
Mission Statement
No One Is Illegal focuses on many social justice issues. With a little over twenty different topics, the organization works on such topics as police brutality, status for immigrants, reasonable accommodation, and war on terror.
Current Activities
Current activities administered by No One Is Illegal-Montreal are advertised through what they call poster projects. Once again, their main focus with the poster projects is on police brutality.
On the last week-end of January 2010, Montrealers as well as individuals involved with No One Is Illegal-Montreal, came together at a community center in Park-Extension to discuss, share experiences, and develop proactive strategies to eliminate violence by the Montreal Police. Members of NOII Network produced a radio interview titled ‘Police Violence and Impunity’ on the CKUT radio station where they interviewed four individuals currently trying to fight for justice against police brutality in Montreal, specifically in poorer, largely immigrant communities like Montréal-Nord and NGD.
As you search through the articles about police brutality on NOII, there is a website, [www.flics-assassins.net], which further elaborates on killings by the Montreal Police from 1987 to 2008. Both websites, NOII and flics-assassins, are independent and do not work together, however, they do encourage individuals to visit each other’s sites to obtain knowledge concerning police brutality.
No One Is Illegal has attracted media attention from McGill University in Montreal. The McGill Daily reported that on Friday, October 23rd, 2009, Jason Kenney, Canada’s Minister of citizenship, immigration, and multiculturalism, was invited to McGill by the “Conservative McGill” student club. However, he was not expecting to be bombarded by a group of protesters challenging his visit. Volunteers from NOII, were questioning the Canadian Minister’s intentions concerning immigrants and refugees being denied status in Canada. A NOII volunteer recounted the story of a Mexican woman murdered after being denied Canadian citizenship twice. Comments were also made on Canada’s Minister allegedly pandering racial biases towards Mexicans in his policies, only to receive an inconsiderate response “I plead guilty, I’m a racist” [3].
The former topic is linked with another important issue that NOII deals with, refugee status and deportation. Posted on their website are articles and photos of a paralyzed Sikh refugee claimant living in Canada. The Canadian Border Service Agencies have tried twice to deport this refugee to India, with the most recent date being January 9th, 2008. The CBSA attempted to remove the refugee from a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Colombia, where he had been hiding for a year after the first attempt facing deportation.
This refugee claimant’s issue has been related to the Komagata Maru Incident of 1914, as told by Bhagat Singh, in “Canadian Sikhs Through a Century”[4]. After many Sikh’s travelled over a month from their homeland to Canada, they were denied citizenship due to implicit racism. No One Is Illegal’s goal is to stop the unfair deportation of this refugee claimant as he is a Canadian citizen and has a right to live in Canada.
Members of NOII have related the Komagata Maru incident to this refugee claimants situation as an attempt to demonstrate the inequalities still faced today by many immigrants, particularly Sikhs.
The importance of the Komagata Maru incident in relation to this case is to establish that even though there may be no law that explicitly states that certain ethnicities are not as welcome in Canada, the actions of Canadian Immigration do not deny this. The NOII organization is making an attempt to demonstrate to Canadians, that should this refugee claimant be deported, history would unfortunately repeat itself as Canada as a nation has not made much progression in the last century to welcoming immigrants.
On December 8th, 2002, a roundtable discussion was held between three Canadian groups; the Action Committee for Non-Status Algerians (Montreal), the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (Toronto), and No One Is Illegal (Montreal), concerning the opinions and solutions of non-status Algerian refugees living in Canada. They discussed such topics as the hardships of living in Canada without formal status, as well as solutions to the harsh policies concerning refugees and immigrants in Canada. This discussion was the product of an unfair attempt by the Canadian Government to deport an Algerian family. In April 2002, the Canadian Government announced that it was unsafe for Canadians to visit Algeria but that it was safe for Algerians to go back to their country, causing the Action Committee for Non-Status Algerians to create public awareness of this unjust decision by the Canadian Government [5].
No On Is Illegal-UK has expressed their distaste of immigration controls. They oppose the media's view of immigration control as a "basic, god-given fact of life", and argue that immigration control is not a natural feature of life. Their argument is that we are dealing with humans not vegetables, therefore we should treat our neighbours with respect and not as intruders, as they firmly believe that all humans have rights, whether they are immigrants asking for status or born-citizens.
Likewise, the No One Is Illegal-Vancouver offers monthly educational services for individuals in the form of films, panels, and cultural events concerning topics such as historic resistance against immigration, displacement, globalization, post 911 security culture among many other topics. As in Montreal, the Vancouver chapter also host several campaigns for the regularization of all non-status people, to restore legal aid for refugees, and immigrant workers , among other influential campaigns [6].
No One Is Illegal-Montreal continues to call attention to the need for Canadians to pressure the federal government to ensure full citizen status rights are given to all individuals immigrating to Canada, as well as refugees. Solidarity Across Borders-Montreal is a website, like NOII, that deals specifically with this issue of immigrant, migrant worker and refugee rights in Montreal and Canada.
Current Organizational Features
Funding for No One Is Illegal-Montreal is acquired solely through donations and benefit shows. There are no employees as the organization is volunteer-based.
References
- ^ http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/
- ^ http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com/
- ^ http://mcgilldaily.com/articles/21692
- ^ Singh, Bhagat. 2001. “Canadian Sikhs Through A Century (1897-1997)”
- ^ http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/refuge/article/viewFile/21303/19974
- ^ http://noii-van.resist.ca/?page_id=2
External Links
Solidarity Across Borders [1] Flic-Assassins Webpage [www.flics-assassins.net] No One is Illegal - UK [2] No One is Illegal - Vancouver [3]