In response to the increasing number of “irregular” border crossings and the influx of undocumented immigrants arriving on Canadian soil seeking refuge, the Canadian state has been implementing a more hermetic border regime and stricter immigration policies to contain those populations. Such policies, which include the expansion of the carceral archipelago, as well as more emphasis on detention and deportation, have been greatly affecting the security and wellbeing of the undocumented immigrants and failed asylum seekers. In response to this trend, a network of migrant justice organizations in several Canadian cities has emerged from below. They have been contesting migrant detention, deportations, and the new border regime by building communities of care and by incorporating the immigrant population into those struggles.

Based on two years of ethnographic work and active engagement with undocumented workers and Canadian migrant justice organizations, this presentation will reflect on the pedagogical and transformative character of those struggles. In particular, it will examine how those social movements provide the basis upon which racialized, undocumented migrant men develop new forms of radical imagination, transform their gender identities, and engage in counter-hegemonic everyday life political practices which prefigurate the free, loving, welcoming, and equalitarian society that they envision.