Moments of Emergence: Organizing by and with Undocumented and Non-Citizen People in Canada after September 11

Abstract

Striking new campaigns across Europe, the United States, and Australia led by refugees, im/migrants, undocumented people, and allies challenge controls over the right to move freely across borders. Situating similar formations within Canada in transnational context, this article anatomizes the impact of September 11 on North American organizing. Drawing on the argument that the construction of September 11 as a national event was ideologically necessary for war abroad and criminalization of immigrants domestically, the article evaluates strategies for confronting state criminalization, detention, racialized citizenship, and “illegality.” It concludes that, far from utopian, “no-border” and “undocumented” movements are fundamentally politically necessary in the current dangerous conjuncture.