Citizenship and Space

I would like to comment on a posting by Filip Franiczek posted on March 12th discussing the lack of citizenship and space. His posting reminds me of the whole idea of illegal or status-less immigrants, many of which are in Canada as well as in the United States (especially Mexicans). Many migrants are here illegally, whether they have been smuggled, trafficked, they’ve overstayed their temporary visas, or they’re asylum seekers claiming refuge. The space they occupy is compromisable and limited. Not only are they marginalized and taken advantage of, but they clearly have no rights as citizens, as workers or as people. Asylum seekers in Canada are often classified by courts and refugee determination boards as either “legitimate” or “bogus.” Legitimate asylum seekers have met policy criteria while bogus asylum seekers, according to refugee officials, have no legitimate claim for refuge status and threaten the orderly and legal admission of migrants. These people are seen as lazy migrants who want to avoid the whole waiting process and possible rejection through normal admission. What’s important here is that this just pushes illegal migration even further underground and places these people, who have possibly fled their home country because of discrimination or for fear of persecution, in a space where they can be taken advantage of, exploited, and discriminated against.
On a side note there is this organization called No One is Illegal. They are a group of immigrants, refugees and allies who fight for the citizenship of all people. They oppose border policies which they argue are designed to exploit and marginalize migrants as well as international economic policies that create conditions of poverty and war that force migration. I’ll post the website if anyone’s interested. It’s really great to see how groups of people have organized themselves in such a fashion and are taking advantage of the spaces they live in, in order help others.http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/