Toronto WBW Statement on Mass Deportations and Detentions in the United States and Canada

By Toronto World BEYOND War, May 16, 2025

World BEYOND War Toronto strongly and unequivocally condemns the Trump administration’s recent wave of reckless, illegal, and racist detentions and deportations. We demand that the Canadian government immediately:

1. Condemn the actions of the U.S. government around the lack of due process and demand the release of migrants held in detention.
2. Denounce the U.S. government arbitrary stripping of Green Cards and student visas  from  people  who are pro-Palestinian and the removal of protected status from those of Haitian and Cuban origins.
3. Respond to this heightened form of terror by severing the Safe Third Country Agreement and by opening all port of entries for migrants in the U.S. to safely enter Canada and claim asylum and other forms of status.

In the United States, racist and xenophobic immigration policies have been normalized to the extent that brazenly fascist groups are openly holding rallies calling for white-supremacist border policies and for the deportation of millions. Today, increasingly violent and bold expressions of illegal and racist deportations are specifically targeting Latin Americans and Arabs. Tactics include: kidnappings in broad daylight; illegal cancellations of Green Cards on the basis of pro-Palestinian support; racial profiling and deportations to El Salvador regardless of country of origin, and encouraging people to self-deport in order to avoid a lengthy detention stay.

However, as we write in Canada, we have no right to feel smug or self-assured with Canadian immigration policy. The Canadian government uses similar violent and oppressive methods to deport and detain migrants. The CBSA hunts down and detains migrants, including children, in jails, creating a moral panic that casts migrants as criminals. Canada deports nearly 1400 people a day and blames the housing crisis on international students and temporary foreign workers. We reject the tactics of the Canadian government that villainize the most vulnerable in our society, rather than laying blame on those who deserve it.

WBW organizes for an end to war and militarization. A major consequence of war is the displacement of people. An anti-war movement is also a movement that defends migrants – whether they are fleeing violence and oppression or are simply seeking a better life. No one should be subjected to the dehumanization of detention and deportation. No one is illegal.

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