RAW: B.C. activists oppose reality show

Harsha Walia of No One Is Illegal protests Vancouver raids filmed by Border Security show

Yeah, I mean, what we have was a number of immigration enforcement raids,

um, on a number of construction worksites,

and undocumented workers, or workers who um y'know currently don't have legal work permits in canada

but are otherwise going through the immigration process,

were picked up, arrested, detained.

Uh, this was at the Victoria (Drive) site, was done, at the behest of a reality tv show,

which is incredibly alarming, the fact that there is a reality tv company that is making money,

including a vancouver-based entertainment production company,

that is profiting off the fact that people are going through, yknow, being arrested, being interrogated,

and being violently shackled as they're being detained and deported.

And so the fact that this immigration style raid happened

is yknow really reminiscent again of U.S. style enforcement.

A lot of enforcement was present

and then coupled with the fact that there's a reality tv show

i think both together are really quite alarming.

[ interviewer ] And what's the problem with the tv show um showing what border agents do day in and day out?

Well I think the premise of it is what's disturbing, right?

Which is the fact that um tv sells sensationalism,

so the fact that border service agencies are gonna be --I would argue--

are going to be more kind of forced to make their raids more sensationalist.

They're gonna be treating people in, yknow like what we saw,

where they had a massive team of enforcement officers kind of come down on people,

and also the fact that its a basic violation of people's rights.

So today I talked to some of the workers at the jail,

and yknow, so Force 4 is not confirming or denying that they were filming,

but the workers said that, yknow, in the jail, while they're being detained,

guards and officers are telling them that they have to sign a consent form.

So there's absolutely no consent,

and if there's consent it's under conditions of duress.

So I think it's really disturbing that we're, um, yknow,

allowing entertainment to be made and profited off of

that's basically at the expense of people.

Again and I think it's yknow it's disturbing.

It's like all these American reality tv shows like the cops shows, right?

Where you see these violent take-downs,

and brutal, again, violations of people's privacy,

and, again, it glorifies what border service agencies do,

without looking at the fact that these are family members who are being ripped apart.

Without looking at the impacts of what they're actually doing, right?

It's completely one-sided, it's like embedded journalism.

There's no talking to these people about their lived reality,

it's just trying to yknow show these border services agencies as glorified police officers.

They're in different legal situations.

So some of them are on expired visas

some of them are actually currently going through different immigration processes.

Some of them are currently making sponsorship applications.

Some of them have gone through the refugee process.

So there's actually a range of, um, of legal statuses in terms of the workers.

Yeah, they're trying to do their job,

and I think the question is yknow what does it mean to have massive-style enforcement raids

where workers have been working for years and years and years

many of them are currently going through the immigration processes,

there's also the oxymoron of the immigration system,

which is that a lot of people aren't actually given work permits,

but are somehow expected to take care of themselves and their families,

so they end up in situations where they're working despite not being given a work permit.

And so I do think there's a question of yknow why are we seeing this level of enforcement?

And why aren't we instead talking about

why is there are greater number of workers who are not able to work legally in this country?

And that is, I think, the main question.