Pro-migrant advocates are calling on the government to abolish the newly created Federal Department of Border Security and Organized Crime.
Migrant justice organizations held a rally outside the Montreal offices of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) on Saturday.
“It’s been a year — where I’m involved 24 hours, seven days a week — I’m working with these people and knowing their stories,” said Frantz Andre, one of the organizers affiliated with a committee for people without status.
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He added his role within the community is to help give a voice to the vulnerable.
“People that came all the way from Brazil through 10 to 14 countries and went to forests where they’ve seen dead bodies, dead bodies decomposed. Where they had to drink water where dead bodies were decomposed. Where some of the women were raped. Where a lady that left Brazil with two kids ended up with one because some kind of animal in the forest got one of them,” Andre continued.
A man walking by the protest stopped to share his opposing viewpoints claiming the government should help Canadians before taking in others. While things escalated at first, they quickly died down.
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According to the Government of Canada’s website, $170 million will be put towards “managing irregular migration” over the next two years, of which $13 million will be provided as legal aid to those seeking asylum.
Andre said it doesn’t count if they can’t actually stay in the country and claims “less than 50 per cent of those whose cases have been heard are accepted.”
“We feel the Haitian community is being stigmatized in order to dissuade others and we feel somehow its a really racist approach to dealing with immigration,” added Andre.
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Pro-migrant activists say they have the following demands:
- The abolition of the new ministry.
- The re-establishment of a moratorium on deportations to Haiti.
- An end to the deportation of all refugees and migrants crossing into Canada from the United States.
While the CBSA told Global News they’ll get back to us on Monday with a statement, Andre maintained the onus doesn’t fall entirely on the government but on all Canadians.
“What can we do? Let’s go and vote. Let’s go and vote for people who are willing to accept migrants in a very respectful and dignified way.”