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Yesterday a media leak revealed that immigration officials are recommending the removal of citizenship rights from babies born to non-residents in Canada. This came on the heels of the racial profiling and arrest of 21 undocumented workers in Ontario this weekend. A network of immigrant and refugee groups is condemning both these developments as symptomatic of a “racist system of managed migration.”

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The decrease in permanent immigration and simultaneous explosion of the number of migrant workers is not, as some might contend, a reflection of a ‘broken’ immigration system. The temporary foreign worker program is a system of managed migration perfected to ensure the steady supply of cheap labour within neoliberalism while further entrenching racialized citizenship. What happens to migrant workers should matter to all of us because dispossession, labour flexibility, and hierarchical social relations are central to how capitalism and colonialism marginalize various communities.