Thread: Illegal immigrants take to the streets - in Canada too!

Sound familiar?

`Afraid every morning I wake up'
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Conten ... 8766615265

Illegal immigrants take to the streets
May 28, 2006. 01:00 AM
THULASI SRIKANTHAN
STAFF REPORTER

In Veronica's nightmares, she is sitting on a plane, handcuffed, heading back to Costa Rica — her ex-boyfriend, a police officer who promised to kill her, waiting.

"I am afraid every morning I wake up," said the bakery worker and illegal immigrant, who didn't want her real name used for fear of deportation.

Veronica, who said her sister was deported from Toronto to Costa Rica last year, lives in hope that something, she doesn't know what, will happen to allow her to stay.

Veronica, 30, was one of the hundreds of undocumented workers, immigrants and their supporters who marched through city streets yesterday, calling for a drastic change to Canada's immigration policies.

The group, which included cleaners, construction workers, maids, cooks and nannies, chanted for an end to deportations, detentions and high-profile removals in public places. They also called for permanent resident or landed immigrant status for all.

Migrants from Somalia to the Philippines to Afghanistan beat plastic drums and waved red and white placards as they walked along Bloor St., and down to Dufferin Grove Park. Police estimated as many as 700 marchers took part. Organizers placed the figure higher.

"We want to send a loud and clear message to the Canadian government we need an immediate, full and inclusive regularization program for (those) living and working in Canada without immigration documentation," said Sima Zerehi, an organizer and member of No One Is Illegal's Toronto chapter. An estimated 200,000 or more undocumented workers are believed to be in Canada.

"The economy of this country would come to a grinding halt if not for the work and skills that undocumented workers bring here."

Similar demonstrations took place in Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver.

For 15-year-old Kimberly Lizano-Sossa, involved in one of the city's high-profile deportation cases and scheduled to be deported with her family July 2, the march was a way to support those in a similar situation.

Last month removal officers arrested her and her brother at their Toronto high school. She said children of illegal immigrants should not be used as bait to force parents to come forward. "They are innocent," she said. "They don't understand what is going on."

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has said it is "not a normal practice" for Canada Border Service agents to enter schools and should only be done under exceptional circumstances.

Like Veronica, Lizano-Sossa clings to hope. "We have lived here for five years, this is our home," she said. "To be sent back to a country where our lives are in danger would be very hard because we don't know what will happen to us."

how these people all seem to have the same coach! Same old rhetoric.

"The economy of this country would come to a grinding halt if not for the work and skills that undocumented workers bring here."

Our economy didn't miss a beat on May 1st. I am sure Canada didn't either.

What skills?? Most never went to school in their own country and are mostly illiterate.

deja vu.

They must all have the same coach. And why don't we hear about this on our news? HHHHMMMM.