Immigration status and policing in Canada: current problems, activist strategies and abolitionist visions

ABSTRACT

Bridging prison and immigration justice is of utmost importance, and an obvious and strategic point of encounter for dialogue among activists and scholars working on these issues is immigration detention. But as penal and carceral abolitionists have taught us, we cannot tackle prison injustice without addressing broader issues in policing, criminal law and other means of coercive social control. Taking my cues from this work, I suggest that we move upstream and look at the role of immigration policing in detention and deportation. The article draws from records obtained mostly through Access to Information (ATI) and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to map out collaboration between the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and municipal police forces in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. In looking for ways to limit police involvement in internal border control, the article discusses strategies to promote a culture of non-collaboration with immigration enforcement and build alternative means of ensuring community safety and well-being in the spirit of police and border abolitionism.

KEYWORDS:

• Abolitionism
• Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)
• immigration
• municipal police
• profiling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Statutes and Cases

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, S.C. 2001, c. 27.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, SOR/2002-227.

Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General Coroner’s Inquest in the Matter of the Inquest into the Death of Lucia Dominga Vega Jimenez - Proceedings at Inquest. Burnaby, B.C., 29 September 2014, p. 18-19.

Notes

1. In Canada, the right to obtain records from federal agencies is covered by the Access to Information and Privacy Act and referred to as Access to Information (ATI), while information from provincial and municipal bodies is covered by provincial laws bearing different names but generally referred to as Freedom of Information (FOI).

2. This service’s name has changed many times and appears differently in various documents used here. I am using the current name to avoid inconsistencies.

3. CBSA ATI # A-2014-08770; Transit Police FOI records now available at: https://transitpolice.ca/news/published-foi-requests/#1461268658268-655b45d7-22fc.

4. CBSA ATI # A-2015-01698.

5. CBSA ATI # A-2015-10,948.

6. In French, ‘criminalité transfrontalière.’ Records with the author.

7. CBSA ATI # A-2017-20,562 and CBSA ATI # A-2019-00049. My emphasis on suspicion. The category ‘status check’ has been replaced in 2019 by ‘status determination.’ After using this language for 4 years, the new version reads ‘Law Enforcement Officers may call to determine the status of an individual they have in custody or who is under criminal investigation or subject to an enforcement proceeding. They may also call to obtain validation of Immigration documents or foreign travel documents’ – CBSA ATI # A-2020-02055.

8. While CPIC includes only criminal information such as records and warrants, the Police Records Information Management Environment (PRIME-BC) is a broader police database that includes police information about anyone who has been in contact with police in British Columbia.

9. Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General Coroner’s Inquest in the Matter of the Inquest into the Death of Lucia Dominga Vega Jimenez – Proceedings at Inquest, Burnaby, B.C., 29 September 2014, p. 18–19. Document with the author.

10. Choosing which collective to cite after each idea would thus prove difficult. For lists of groups offering similar ideas in various contexts, see Rose (2018) or TRIP! Project (2018).

11. Many collectives have developed or gathered tools. See, for instance, resources developed by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence or Philly Stands Up to address gender-based and sexual violence in a spirit of community accountability.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Moffette

David Moffette is an Associate professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He studies questions related to the intersections between criminal law and immigration law, borders and bordering practices, policing, nationalism, and racism.