Serving the People: Migrant Justice Organizing and Solidarity Amidst Fascist Border Regimes

By: Adam Arca (he/they)

“I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless, robots who protect them and their property.” 

-Assata Shakur, Black revolutionary [1]

In 2003, Juana Tejada came to Canada as a caregiver to Alberta from Abra in Northern Luzon, a landlocked province situated in the mountains of the Philippine Cordillera; a vital source of both natural protection from typhoon winds and resources for benevolent foreign mining and logging companies that displace countless [2,3]. When she arrived in March, she worked for years without permanent residency as per the requirements of the Live-in Caregiver Program, taking care of her employer’s twins from sunrise to sunset, cleaning up after their messes, doing their laundry, accompanying them to school, playing with and entertaining them—being the mother she could never become. Three years later in 2006, when she took the required second immigration medical exam after the fulfillment of her 24 months of service under her employer, the Immigration Refugee Council of Canada denied her application for PR [4]. The reason: she was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. It was terminal. She was deemed unfit to work. Juana would move in with her cousin in Toronto, delaying treatment because she was not covered by provincial health insurance. She continued to take on caregiving work under two different families in the city, undergoing hard manual labour, cleaning homes that were not hers, to pay the price of her medical care that would keep her alive.

To live, she had to labour herself to death.  

Figure 1 - Juana Tejada with her husband, Noli Azada (May 28, 2008) [5]

Juana Tejada is only one singular case, one life, in a mountain of bodies collecting underneath the steel boots of the Canadian immigration system. Today, we see migrants across the globe be abused and exploited, pushed into precarity, labour-trafficked and human-trafficked, all whilst being scapegoated for an economic crisis caused by the exhaustion of capitalist production. With continuing wars of aggression over the world’s resources and the rise in militarism and fascism, in 2024 alone, the refugee population has grown up to 35.4 million worldwide and those who have been internally displaced at 71.4 million [6]. That same year, UN Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata visited Canada and officially proclaimed what so many migrant workers here knew: the Temporary Foreign Work Program is a “breeding ground” for contemporary forms of slavery [7].

In most urban cities like Toronto, migrants are the very ones building the very homes and infrastructure that certain politicians like the current BC Premier are saying they are taking over [8]. The very same migrants, experiencing the brunt of homelessness, displacement, and a lack of secure work that they are being blamed for.    

How do we reckon with these contradictions? How do we easily accept the propaganda of the state, who have everything to gain in our division? Who are afraid of the people striking and fighting back, the working-class, who toil every day to produce their lifestyles? 

How do we truly “serve the people” when we don’t even know who the “people” are? When we don’t even know ourselves or where we came from?

The Push: On Imperialism & Forced Migration 

Figure 2 - Udo Keppler, "Next!" (1904) [9]

In organizing circles, we often talk about migration like a push. Individuals, families, entire communities, violently pushed from their homes and into desperate conditions, owning nothing but their own bodies to sell in the form of often precarious and unregulated labour. 

This is the inherent crisis of accumulation; where once socialized labour is rapidly converted into private development for profit, where resources are extracted and plundered overseas for the production and trade of goods, we see now that we have reached an era of monopoly—the widescale control of capital via giant conglomerates that compete and collude to advance their interests, often owned or partnered with the state to protect and expand their power [10]. 

We call this the highest stage of monopoly capitalism: imperialism. 

Canada is unmistakingly an imperialist country. Of the tens of thousands of mining companies that operate all over the globe, the country owns an estimated 60% of them, many of which are known to exploit the resources of former colonies in the global south where mining is linked to human rights violations and environmental devastation that exacerbates climate change [11]. The world’s largest gold mining firm, Barrick Mining Corporation, has its headquarters nestled right on Bay Street in Toronto between a sea of glass high-rises. On March 24^th, 1996, Placer Dome, a corporation now acquired under Barrick, was involved in one of the Philippine’s worst mining disasters in its history that resulted in the spillage of more than 1.6 million cubic meters of toxic waste being dumped into the surrounding villages and the poisoning of the Boac River in the island of Marinduque, Luzon [12]. Today, heavy metals still run through the veins of the villagers and their children. 

Across the Philippines, farmers, fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples, the urban poor, workers, and students are displaced from their lands and livelihoods in favour of foreign business interests. The country is known as the global model for migrant “labour brokerage” [13]. This was first a result of a legacy of American imperialist education programs for Filipina nurses and caregivers abroad during WWI but would set the foundation for former President Ferdinand E Marcos declaration of martial law and implementation of his “New Society” in 1972. Along with it, were sham agrarian reforms, large-scale destructive environmental infrastructures like dams, and two years later, the Labour Export Program under Presidential Decree 442 which would encourage and incentivize large-scale outwards migration making Filipino remittances sent home to account for nearly 10% of the gross domestic product of the country [14]. A legacy that his son “Bonbong” Marcos continues and violently upholds to this day. 

Forced migration is therefore not a singular event, but a consequence of a history of imperialist control that wreaks havoc in semi-colonies like the Philippines to keep the people poor, and the rich richer. 

The Pull: The Canadian Migration Regime

On October 16th, 2025, four undocumented migrant workers were identified by the Canadian Border Services Agency at a construction site in Calgary, Alberta [15]. CBSA agents and police forces reportedly swept the workplace, checking IDs to identify those in “non-compliance” of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In response, the CBSA spokesperson has stated that “Ensuring that those who are inadmissible leave the country is critical to the integrity of Canada’s immigration system”.

It's ironic. Since the conception of this settler-colony to its current capitalist state formation, migrants have always been an integral labour force weaponized and manipulated by the ruling class. Nearly a quarter (23%) of the population is immigrants [16]. Canada itself is a country that pulls an army of workers from the global south who are desperate and disenfranchised enough in their home countries to work menial jobs overseas that treat them as discarded and disposable commodities. 

In 2009, four migrant construction workers died falling from the thirteenth story of a high rise in West Toronto [17]. In 2012, a van transporting 11 agricultural workers, many of whom were migrants, died in a collision in Hampstead, Ontario [18]. Two survivors of the crash worried that they would just be shipped back home to Peru after receiving minimum care. From 2020 to 2021 nine migrant agricultural workers died across the province during the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic [19]. The dreamers of the world come here to escape death in their countries, only to die upholding the economy of the Canadian state.

According to the 2021 Census, the City of Toronto has the largest immigrant population in the country with about 46.6% of the population being immigrants, amounting to up to 2,862,850 people [20]. While many immigrate through the “high-skilled” economic pathways or go to universities with student visas to eventually work in the city, a vast percentage of migrants also come through the supposedly “low-skilled” pathways via the Seasonal Agricultural Work Program, the Temporary Foreign Work Program, and the Live-in Caregiver Program. These “low-skilled” programs are often under closed-work permits tied to one employer, introducing opportunities for abuse, wage theft, and generally exploitative conditions akin to slavery [21]. 

The largest GDP-contributing sector in both Ontario and British Columbia is real estate, rental and leasing [22]. In March 2025, the federal government with Minister of Immigration Marc Miller announced that they will be making pathways to permanent residency for up to 6,000 undocumented construction workers [23], but only a couple months after, the Prime Minister then invested millions into the Canadian Border Services Agency to hire more enforcement agents which will inevitably conduct raids against undocumented workers in the name of “building Canada strong” [24]. 

If “Canada” profits off the creation of real estate and rentals, then who else will build your homes than the same migrant construction workers they are trying to eliminate? It is glaringly apparent that the only thing these politicians and capitalists really wish to protect, is their rightful positions standing on the necks of migrants, and they will use any tactics possible other than genuinely protecting and providing security for the workers—whether scapegoating, deporting, or outright fear-mongering—to achieve it. 

Migrants Strike Back!

Growing up in the suburbs of Ontario, I have always thought that it was better to remain silent in the face of injustice, than to speak out. But organizing and resisting fascist state policies here in Canada and abroad has taught me that fighting back is always a legitimate response to the conditions that migrants and other oppressed peoples are put into. Just as wealthy capitalists and ruling elites organize their political power and resources to create systems that protect their hierarchical positions, communities must also organize and stand united in response to the rise in xenophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric.

Under Bill C-12 (formerly Bill C-2, The Strong Borders Act), the federal government will have the power to terminate visas and migrant documents on the basis of “public interest” [25]. Permanent residents once thought of as a constant status, now completely null and void at the will of the state. The Bill also heightens surveillance on any individuals deemed “suspicious” and disproportionately attacks refugees, blocking them from asylum if they have been in Canada for more than a year after their first entry (including visits) and for those seeking asylum from the US. 

With low wages, a high cost of living, and indifferent Canadian and Philippine governments, private construction businesses and sham immigration consultancy agencies like The Promised Land Consultancy in Vancouver [26] are able to profit from Filipino migrant workers, enticing them to come to Canada under visitor visas with promises of work, but in reality, filling their pockets with cash. Tanggol Migrante is a campaign led by Migrante Ontario to seek justice for victims of labour trafficking by the Berderald Consultancy in Toronto that has scammed migrants for permits paying upwards of $5,800 [27]. 

It seems every day, a Canadian ICE regime is becoming more of a reality. Thus, we must be even more steadfast and creative in our organizing, strengthening and solidifying our capacity to protect each other and our neighbours. We must reach out to the most invisible labourers and most vulnerable and hard-to-reach workplaces, often facing the brunt of human rights violations. We must become consolidated ideologically and politically. Must stand unwavering in the face of militarism and build solidarity across borders. We must know our rights and become familiar with arduous struggle and the life of those who are suffering the most. They cannot deport us all. They cannot defeat us if we are the global majority. If we strike back stronger.

Serving the People

After her health insurance expired in Toronto, Juana Tejada sent a letter to the Canadian government in 2007 requesting that they make an exemption for her case on humanitarian and compassionate grounds [2]. She was denied again in 2008. The reason this time: her “health condition might reasonably be expected to cause excessive demand on health and social services.”  Filipino migrant rights organization Migrante Canada would rally behind her alongside other allied labour organizations as she fought for reforms to the Live-in-Caregiver Program. In June 2008, after public protests with other grassroot organizations and press conferences she would receive a call from the government telling her work permit was extended until December 10^th . In July, immigration authorities finally exempted her from the medical requirements and granted her full permanent residency while she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment. On March 8^th, 2009, she died in Toronto General Hospital at 39 years old and her remains were flown back to her hometown in the Cordillera for burial. A year later in April 2010, the Juana Tejada Law would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, revoking the need for foreign caregivers to take a second medical exam when applying for permanent residency.

If they were good enough to work, they were good enough to stay.

On a black and white T-shirt that one of my kasamas is wearing, the words “SERVE THE PEOPLE” pop out to me. I thought I had known what it meant when I started organizing. I thought it was a simple sentiment, a cute catchphrase to slap on merch, but it was only until I really became committed to the work that I realized its true meaning. 

To feel the anger and the anguish of the people under capitalism as if it is your own. To be bound to others by not the materialistic, the commodity, but by your resolve and care for others outside of yourself. That is truly something special. Every day of my life, I am trying to deserve this; the people around me, the meals we share, the conversations we have with wavering voices, the way that we can both laugh and scream in the same breath in the middle of the city for better living and working conditions.

No one is born a revolutionary or an activist, especially in Canada where we inherit a system of capitalist values that prioritize ownership and the need for more. We become so invested in the state that we identify with it. I very well could have been a doctor or an academic like my mom and so many of the people in my life wanted for me. But I cared way too much about my people’s stories and cared far too less about how an institution wanted me to tell them. 

Serving the people is not a one-time event, but a life-long commitment. It happens when you show up for others, when you proactively attempt to shed the individualist ideologies that breed cynicism and benefit capitalism, when you openly participate in criticism, and when you are diligent in both the study of our concrete conditions and the practice of being truly integrated and invested in the struggles of others. We are nothing without each other, and thus, we should act on the knowledge that just as global capitalism restructures and escalates the very conditions to which we live and work, so does our capabilities to organize across these fraught borders.

“Makibaka! Huwag matakot!” Fight! Be not afraid!

It’s one of my favourite chants to cry out during rallies because it reminds us that this work is and will always be hard. This entire system is against us. And I am so afraid. Afraid that I and countless others will never return home. That my mom and dad will die not knowing what it means to taste freedom. But I’d rather be afraid, pinned against the wall and fighting back with all that I have and am, than cowering and isolated in my fear. We fight and we dare to struggle because it is only us, the people, who will topple this rotten system and create something new, that truly benefits us all. We fight and dare to struggle because it is only us, the people, who will shape history. 

References

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