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No One Is Illegal: OrganizingBeyond Left Nationalism inFortress North AmericaJ.A. ShantzPublished online: 15 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: J.A. Shantz (2005) No One Is Illegal: Organizing Beyond LeftNationalism in Fortress North America, Socialism and Democracy, 19:2, 179-185, DOI:10.1080/08854300500122449

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No One Is Illegal: Organizing

Beyond Left Nationalism

in Fortress North America

J.A. Shantz

One of the key struggles of the current period, one that posesa great challenge to the Left, involves state control of borders andthe movement of people. Canadian and US governments, under thecover provided by September 11, are devising joint agreementsaround border controls and immigration criteria. There has evenbeen chilling talk from some authorities about establishing a continen-tal perimeter, a “Fortress North America.” As many commentatorshave pointed out, these practices are also about strengtheningthe government’s hand in fighting the globalization struggles at atime when many sensed it was beginning to lose its grip. This is onereason why legislation against activism has gone hand-in-hand witha clampdown on immigration, on the global mobility of labour.Increased policing, imprisonment, calls for harsher sentences and thedeath penalty as well as detentions, deportations and tighter bordersare all signs of a culture of insecurity, crisis and fear. Similarly onemight include private security forces, surveillance cameras, “gatedcommunities,” and laws that make panhandling illegal. In thiscontext, where markers of inclusion and exclusion are sought out, itis not surprising that racism plays an important part.

Policies on immigration show clearly the character and powerof national states within contemporary processes of capitalistglobalization.

A major part of the restructuring strategies of national states across the GlobalNorth has been the reorganization of migration policies that legally deny themajority of migrants the status of permanent resident or citizen. In this way,citizenship and immigration policies play a starring role in the shaping ofeven more intensified competition within global labour markets. Throughnational classification schemes the state is able to determine who is a citizen,a permanent resident, a temporary migrant worker, or an illegal. This allowsthe state to offer up a growing and highly competitive (read: vulnerable) work-force of non-citizens to employers. (Sharma 2003)

Socialism and Democracy, Vol.19, No.2, July 2005, pp.179–185

ISSN 0885-4300 print/ISSN 1745-2635 online

DOI: 10.1080=08854300500122449 # 2005 The Research Group on Socialism and Democracy

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Racial and economic profiling maintains the system of divide-and-conquer which allows bosses and governments to play off sectors ofthe working class against each other. It is part of longstanding practicesthat drive wages down and prevent opposition movements fromforming. Border controls don’t stop the movement of people, nor arethey intended to. Because migration is a movement for life and fornew homes, no border control can block it.

What ideologies of border control actually do in the context of worldwide crisesof displacement and homelessness is to make the majority of migrants legallyforeign within the nation state. Most people migrating to Canada now enterwithout permanent-resident status and come instead as temporary migrantworkers or sans papiers. Restrictive immigration policies, therefore, do notwork to restrict the migration of people but to restrict their access to rights,entitlements and much-needed protections once they are living and workingwithin the countries of the Global North. (Sharma 2003)

The unequal distribution of rights ensured by state definitions ofcitizen, immigrant, refugee or “illegal” serves the interests of capitalin several ways. At the same time these differential categories harmworkers across the board. The limitation of political or legal rights onthe basis of birthplace makes people increasingly vulnerable andopen to intimidation and extreme exploitation. Denial of social benefitssuch as welfare, disability benefits and unemployment benefits createsa precarious workforce that will take on undesirable or dangerouswork and be less able to organize for better conditions. Differential cat-egories of citizenship also serve as markers of difference separatingworkers.

Migration is primarily the movement of people affected by thatexploitation globally. Poverty and unemployment result from the capi-talist structuring of work that sees some work 60-hour weeks whileothers are left without work. In reality, the ills of capitalism can onlybe truly alleviated when those affected by exploitation – employedand unemployed, immigrants and non-immigrants – embrace eachother in solidarity. This will require that organized labour work toovercome the nationalism which has driven much of labour politicsin Canada and the US. Unfortunately, as Nandita Sharma (2003)notes: “Our concerns – highly discriminatory immigration policies,border controls, racist policing, housing, health and employment prac-tices, etc. – rarely appear on the radar, as evidenced by their almostcomplete absence in the concerns of the nationalist Left.”

Left nationalism or neo-Keynesianism, which argues for a return tothe social citizenship of the welfare state (prevalent in North America

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roughly from 1945 until the early ‘80s), has undergone something of arevival in the context of capitalist globalization. In Canada the perspec-tive of resurgent Left nationalism has been most forcefully articulatedtheoretically by Gordon Laxer and the venerable Left publicationCanadian Dimension. Politically, Left nationalism has been a centralfeature of trade unions like the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) andunion federations like the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL).Nationalist approaches to globalization actually strengthen the state’sclaims, when what is needed is a critique of emergent state practices.

This will have to change. Working class cooperation, especially inthis global age of capital movement across all borders, is necessary fora real defence of our neighbours and communities. Conversely, thestrengthening of the state’s powers and the tightening of border con-trols only works to tear apart our communities. Racial and economicprofiling is part of longstanding practices that drive wages downand prevent opposition movements from forming. As Zarehi (2003)points out, border security, immigration policies, racial profiling andpolice brutality are effective tools that allow for the exploitation ofmigrants as a cheap source of labour under capitalism.

This is one reason that “no one is illegal” and anti-borders move-ments can be so threatening to capital. These movements can be thebeginnings of a social re-composition that resists the capitalist termsof inclusion and exclusion and which threatens to draw together theinsecured with the secured sections of the working class. In thiscontext organizations that draw together unemployed workers, home-less people, Natives, immigrants and refugees, students and teachersoffer a particularly grave concern for local agents of capitalist security.

Here I will discuss some of the projects and perspectives that haveemerged from recent and still developing movements. I approach thisdiscussion from the perspective of a rank-and-file union activistworking in Toronto and involved in these projects.

Building bridges in our communities

Among the groups that have determined not to allow these anti-immigrant practices to continue and intensify is the Ontario CoalitionAgainst Poverty (OCAP). OCAP has been at the forefront of developingnew, creative and effective ways of dealing with government agencieswhich target for mistreatment those who are deemed to be vulnerable.One of the most successful practices pioneered by OCAP is “directaction casework.” Unlike more hierarchical “client/caregiver” formsof casework, direct action casework directly involves the people

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facing injustice, allowing them to determine what course of action totake. Unlike more passive forms of casework, direct action caseworkgoes directly to the source of injustice, whether a welfare office, land-lord or immigration office, mobilizing large numbers of communitymembers (neighbours, students, unionists, activists) to get whateveris needed. Over the years, this approach has been highly successful,winning such tangible benefits as welfare and disability checks, wheel-chairs, rent refunds and even stays of deportation. In three years OCAPhas successfully supported over 50 families with immigration work.

Another important development has been the work of the anti-waropposition targeting the racist anti-immigrant attacks that have playedsuch a crucial part in the Canadian state’s drive for war. The “no oneis illegal” campaign in Toronto made its debut with a sizeable contingentin the great anti-war mobilization of February 15, 2003. A broad coalitionof immigrant defence, anti-poverty, socialist and labour organizations isbeginning to articulate a visible resistance to the state’s racist attempts todivide the working class locally and internationally. This is especiallyimportant given that the Federal Minister responsible for the govern-ment’s newly established office of “public safety and security” hasidentified as his primary initiative the creation of “an Australian-styledetention system.” As a growing underclass of migrant and refugeelabour, including many people who have already fled imperialist-backed wars, faces increased exploitation and criminalization inCanada, the necessity of the “no one is illegal” and ongoing anti-warand anti-occupation campaigns coming together will be crucial.

These efforts of the growing “no one is illegal” campaign are build-ing solidarity with immigrants and refugees, indigenous communities,unionists and anti-poverty activists against the attacks on vast sectorsof the working class, which, under the veil of security, create miserableinsecurity within our communities. As the situations facing immigrantsand refugees become worse and worse and as xenophobia becomes thebasis for social policy, the need to develop creative and effective meansof struggle becomes more and more pressing.

Rank-and-file flying squads and border struggles

One particularly effective means of struggle has been pioneered byrank-and-file union members recently in actions against deportations.This example, drawn from labour movement histories, is the “flyingsquad,” a rapid response network of rank-and-file unionists thatcan mobilize members to take part in direct actions to defend peoplefacing attacks from bosses, landlords or governments. Little more

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than an active phone tree that any member can initiate, the flyingsquads offer a mobile defence force and support network.

In early September 2001, OCAP, along with allies in CanadianUnion of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3903 flying squad, wentdirectly to Pearson International Airport to demand an end to threatsof deportation against three families. Leaflets were given to passengersalerting them to the situation, and a visit was paid to the ImmigrationCanada deportation office in the basement of Terminal One. OCAPdemanded and received a meeting with the airport’s immigration man-agement and gave a deadline of the end of the business day for man-agement to issue stays of removal in all three instances. All threedeportations were eventually cancelled. This unusual result, in whichthe removal dates were cancelled prior to a Federal Court challenge,testifies to the powers of direct action.

It must also be stressed that the presence of the flying squad wascrucial to the success of this action. The flying squad, a decentralizedgroup of rank-and-file activists on-call to support strikes, demon-strations or casework actions, demonstrates how labour organizationscan step out of traditional concerns with the workplace to act in a broad-ened defence of working class interests. The expansion of unionflying squads, with autonomy from union bureaucracies, couldprovide a substantial response to the state’s efforts to isolate immigrantsand refugees from the larger community. CUPE 3903 has also formedan Anti-Racism Working Group and an Anti-Poverty Working Groupto work hand-in-hand with OCAP on actions or cases. The emboldenedaggressiveness of Immigration Canada after September 11 makes suchactions in defence of vulnerable people much more pressing.

There is more that unions could do. In the Netherlands, pilots canrefuse, as a health and safety issue, to transport people who have beenordered deported. This is something which should be implemented inairline unions in North America. Instead of refusing to attend thePearson action, as they did, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW),which represents many airline workers, could have used the opportu-nity to discuss the issue with their members as a first step in activelypursuing such a policy.

A new underground railroad?

The emerging circumstances of increased repression mean thatunions and social movements must develop much more thoroughand advanced strategies for support. Labour needs to organizeoutside of the limited confines of collective bargaining and the

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workplace to build networks of class-wide support. This must includesupport for unemployed workers, poor people, injured workers,immigrants and refugees, among others. In effect these networksshould form the basis for a new underground railroad which cansecure safe travel across borders for people seeking to flee economicexploitation or political repression. As in the original undergroundrailroad, this new network must be ready to operate outside of legalauthorities. While community organizations can be expected to playa part in this, only organized labour has the resources to make thisan effective and ongoing practice. Labour can help to provide trans-portation, safehouses and even employment, all of which will benecessary.

To a significant extent, this has begun to happen as part of the net-works that have emerged to help US soldiers who oppose the war inIraq find safe passage to Canada. In addition to transportation andsafe houses, strong community support networks have developed tohelp resisters and their families. This provides a key to organizingthat might be extended more broadly.

Of course labour must work fundamentally against the statist cat-egories of citizenship, which arbitrarily grant workers differential pol-itical and legal rights. As long as these citizenship categories existbosses will continue to use “illegal” labour for their own purposes.As long as there are vulnerable and hyper-exploitable categories ofworkers, capital will be able to use these differences against workers.Illegal workers will still be subject to harsher working conditions atlower pay without social benefits. Legal precariousness will alwaysbe a mechanism for exploiting those workers who find themselves insuch a situation. Thus labour must not stop at helping the movementof illegal workers but must fundamentally work to abolish thosepractices which make anyone illegal. As the movements have stated:“No one is illegal.”

Conclusion

Socialists and anarchists have long maintained that people have theright to live, work and travel wherever they choose and to associatewith whomever they choose. As internationalists, or perhaps moreaccurately transnationalists, we actively oppose national borders, whichserve to divide and segregate people. It is important to rememberthat this view was central to the international labour movement atthe time of capitalist liberalism a century ago. It is time for labour toremember this vital part of its history.

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More recently, transnationalists have argued that this perspectivemust be grounded in a respect for Indigenous self-determination andstruggles against colonial states which have worked to exclude andeliminate native peoples over centuries of occupation. Along with NoBorders movements, the most powerful challenge to the legitimacy ofnational states currently comes from Indigenous peoples’ movements(Sharma 2002: 25). Movements against borders in settler societieslike Canada and the US must always address how statist appealsextend the effects of colonialism and neo-colonialism. Left nation-alist approaches have little to offer Indigenous struggles for self-determination and land. As Sharma (2002: 24) notes, national states“exist in profound opposition to the self-determination of Indigenouspeople foremost.” Indeed Indigenous communities have long rejectedstrategies that rest on identifications of Canadian or US citizenship.Through such challenges these movements also fundamentallycontest the legitimacy of capitalism. Overall, what is needed is anhonest and sustained discussion on how to embark on a process ofdecolonization. While this is still an emerging project for most Leftgroups, Indigenous communities in Tyendinaga, Akwesasne andKahnesetake have worked to build alliances with organizations likeOCAP against the colonial Canadian state.

Anti-capitalist organizations must take up the challenge of bordersat local and global levels. As Sharma (2003) suggests: “The Left needs tosoundly reject nationalist endeavours on the grounds that the oppres-sion and exploitation of Indigenous peoples, people of colour, queersand other Others occurs precisely because they are constructed asfalling outside of the nation. What is needed in the place of Left nation-alism is an honest and sustained debate on how to embark on a projectof decolonization.” Those of us who are rank-and-file unionists musttake up the challenge in a serious way, drawing on OCAP’s examplebut extending it radically. The old labour standard “An Injury to Oneis an Injury to All” must be a driving principle once more.

References

Sharma, Nandita. (2002). “Open the Borders: Resist Nationalism, An Interviewwith Nandita Sharma.” New Socialist 38: 24–25.

—— (2003). “No Borders Movements and the Rejection of Left Nationalism.”Canadian Dimension 37(3), May/June: 37–39.

Zerehi, S. (2003). “The Racist War at Home.” New Socialist 41: 21–23.

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