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May 1st: No One Is Illegal
Submitted by ocap on Thu, 04/22/2010 - 18:35.
March for Status for All!
1pm, St. Jamestown
Wellesley St. and Ontario St.
5th Annual May Day of Action
In the past 6 years the struggle for justice for immigrants and refugees has grown immensely. Inspired by the individual and collective strength of Mohamed Cherfi, Kimberley Lizano-Sossa, Fahim Kayani, Shamim Akhtar, Isabel Garcia, Wendy Maxwell, and the many others that we have known, and the countless others that have had to fight alone, the Migrant Justice movement has fore fronted struggles of people of color, women, disAbled and queer migrants, particularly those without full status.
Rising out of schools, shelters and apartment blocks from Jane and Finch to Crescent Town, our voices have reached the streets and the hallways of power. From the 2004 No One Is Illegal march from Montreal to Ottawa, to the first Toronto May Day of Action in 2006, to the take over of Yonge and Dundas square on May Day in 2009, we have worked tirelessly to create real meaningful change – stopping deportations, winning access to schools, changing federal immigration policy. We have been on picket lines with labour unions, on barricades in solidarity with Indigenous struggles, supported people’s organizations in streets and in communities.
Now, in 2010, as the Conservative government arrests and deports our friends. As they tear apart our families. As they push us in to unsafe jobs. As they call us “bogus refugees” and “illegals”, and do it with a smile, we say no mas, no more.