International students fight Trudeau deportation plans

International students in Brampton are fighting back against the Liberal government’s changes to immigration policies which threaten mass deportations.

 

For the past month, in difficult conditions, the students and their supporters have maintained an encampment to protest this deportation threat against over 200,000 Post-Graduate Work Permit (PGWP) holders.

 

For years, Canada has openly marketed the international student program as a pathway to permanent residency (PR), with the slogan “Study, Explore, Work, Stay”. The students, many from working class and small farming families, spent their life savings to migrate to Canada based on this promise. They paid exorbitant tuition fees and worked at exploitative jobs.

 

During COVID, the government was desperate for foreign workers and allowed them to work full-time, extending PGWPs. In 2021, then-immigration Minister Marco Mendicino wrote, “We don’t just want you to study here, we want you to stay here.”

 

But the Liberals did nothing to deal with a severe backlog in PR applications due to a lack of processing for two years. And they abruptly changed PR program criteria just as workers became eligible for them.

 

“Use and throw policy”

 

Now, with expiring work permits and restricted pathways to PR, international students and immigrant workers are being forced into worse conditions of exploitation.

The students aptly name this Canada’s “use and throw” policy.

 

The combined tuition, labour and taxes of international students contributed $31 billion to the Canadian economy. Yet International students are being scapegoated for the lack of housing, jobs and services. In reality, it is the corporations and developers, and the governments who do their bidding, that are to blame.

 

The Trudeau government’s attacks on international students and other migrants will not create a single unit of housing or re-open a single closed emergency room. But they are fueling racism and the far-right, weakening our ability to fight the corporations and landlords that profit off our labour.

 

At the September 28 rally marking one month of the encampment, Mehakdeep Singh spoke powerfully about the reality confronting international students seeking permanent resident status:

“A friend who saw my videos asked me: Why isn’t your status permanent even after living there for 4-5 years? I responded, I became permanent the moment I left my sobbing parents and sisters to board the plane to come here. I became permanent when I would go to college during the day and work at night, catching sleep on the bus rides and missing my stop more times than I can count… I became permanent the moment my employer took advantage of our circumstances and refused to pay us… I became permanent when I had to witness the cremations and last rites of those who taught me how to walk and speak, who named us, on video calls.”

 

No more Komagata Maru!

 

The anguish expressed at the government’s callous disregard for migrant workers’ lives draws on Canada’s brutal history of racist mistreatment of migrants. As protesters marched in Brampton, they chanted “No more Komagata Maru!”, referring to Canada blocking the entry of South-Asian immigrants on the ship Komagata Maru in 1914.

 

In May 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized for the incident before the House of Commons, saying: “Today – while knowing that no words can fully erase the pain and suffering experienced by the passengers – I offer a sincere apology on behalf of the government for the laws in force at the time that allowed Canada to be indifferent to the plight of the passengers of the Komagata Maru.”

 

Shamefully, Trudeau is continuing that very same indifference today.

 

The students demand that the government:

• extend work permits expiring in 2024-25

• implement a fair pathway to PR

• stop Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) exploitation

• provide 5-year PGWPs for all.

 

Labour and community support was visible at the September 28th rally – but it urgently needs to broaden as the threat of deportation looms. The labour movement and every community must stand with these students and migrant workers as a whole, and oppose Trudeau’s cruel and dangerous scapegoating.

 

• Join the encampment at 295 Queen St. East in Brampton.

Info: @Stand_for_immigrant­_workers @NaujawanSupportNetwork