vimeo.com/.../219149733

Greetings troublemakers.

Welcome to Trouble… my name is not important.

The past couple of years have been a real

kick in the teeth for those of us who dream

of a world without borders...

not to mention the countless people around the world

who had the distinct misfortune of not being born

in the United States

yet still had the audacity

to imagine they'd be able to visit Disneyland

at some point in their lives.

Oh well.

I guess Euro-Disney's still a thing... right?

Standing in firm opposition to bleeding-heart,

snowflake values of multiculturalism, equality

of opportunity, solidarity, and the inherent

value of all human life,

a strident new form

of nationalist reaction has been steadily

gaining ground in countries all around the globe.

Often narrowly associated with Brexit,

the rise of the European far-right,

and the election of Donald Trump,

this racist and panic-driven

form of populism is a truly global phenomenon

– and one with incredibly deep roots.

Nationalism is, after all, a central pillar

of state power, and a default go-to

during times of crisis.

So it's no great mystery that after nearly

a decade of punishing austerity measures,

and more than fifteen years living under

the spectre of a global War on Terror,

many have fallen prey to the tempting illusion

of security conjured up by strong walls,

and the politicians who promise to build them...

...and make Mexico
pay for it.

But even within this context of generalized

paranoia and resurgent nationalism

there are many who continue to bravely fight for

a better world – a world in which human beings

are granted the same freedom of movement

currently reserved for commodities.

Over the next thirty minutes, we'll share

the voices of some of these individuals, as

they speak about their experiences resisting

increased border militarization,

thwarting immigration enforcement...

and making a whole lotta trouble.

People have been crossing through this area

since.... forever.

A lot of the areas that we work are actually

routes that people used to migrate through,

seasonally -- a lot of the folks whose land

this is: the Tohono O'Odham and Yaqui people.

But more recently the whole idea is, you know...

to get from Mexico to the US.

I'm a volunteer with the organization

No More
Deaths.

We are a non-hierarchical, consensus based

group and we do humanitarian aid

in the border regions.

We put out water on known migrant trails.

We also do search and rescue.

We document abuses by border patrol and different

organizations, and we also provide assistance

to people who have been deported and provide

harm reduction kits for people who are going

to be crossing the desert.

As we've expanded our work, we've expanded

the areas we're working in, and that includes

some of the areas in the west desert around

Ajo Arizona where people are walking across

Organ Pipe National Monument, into Cabeza

Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and then across

about 20 miles of active bombing range.

The journey north has changed

a lot in the last 15 years.

The urban centers were sealed in the mid-90s,

pushing people out into the geography of the desert.

It's a very intentional strategy on the part

of the US government and border patrol

to increase human suffering and death along the

border as an ostensible deterrent.

Over the years we've also seen the areas we've

done water drops and the areas that we've seen

water drops moving have also become more remote.

Essentially what we've done is we've mapped

north-south trails and we'll drive roads

and do drops.

But a lot of the drops that are closer to

roads we've just seen a really big uptick

in vandalism, and we've also seen an increased

amount of use in extremely remote areas.

A lot of migrants get separated from their

guides because the border patrol dusts them.

A helicopter will come and fly very close

to a group, people will scatter, get separated

from their guides and in this manner get lost

and frequently spend weeks walking in circles.

Folks generally travel at night,

the pace of the group is very quick.

If folks can't keep up with the group

they're frequently left behind.

So a lot of the patients we get at camp are

very close to death when we find them.

There's also been an increase in militarization

in the immigration enforcement in Mexico,

so Mexico actually deported more Central Americans

last year than the United States did.

And part of that is with US support

through Plan Frontera Sur.

The United States is actually funding the
Mexican government

to implement border security

on their southern border with Guatemala.

I've talked to people who were riding the

train and then to get around checkpoints walked

for 8 or 9 days in Mexico.

So by the time they get here they've often

traveled for over a month.

Being identified as a migrant in Mexico from

further south makes people vulnerable to extortion,

kidnapping and assault.

I would say many of the women who have made

it to the US-Mexican border experienced some

form of traumatic violence during their journey.

The goal is for people to have such a devastating

and traumatic experience crossing that they

are deterred from further attempts.

It's very short-sighted and it does not take into

account the reasons that people are migrating north

A lot of reason that folks are coming from

Central America have to do with US economic

and foreign policy, now and in the past.

One of the things that happens under the auspices

of democracy-building, with things like Plan Frontera Sur

or the Merida Initiative is that

the US government is funding military, and

via extension paramilitary in torture techniques

and repression of social movements.

So not only is it keeping people from traveling

north to escape violence, it's actually creating

and perpetuating more violence.

If you look at the School of the Americas

and the funding of the Mexican military to

fight terrorism and to fight drugs, one of

the groups, the Zetas, was initially an arm

of the Mexican military and then they decided

to break off and kind of took over the drug

trade in Texas and in Matamoros and Tamaulipas,

and they've become one of the most violent gangs

And they were trained and funded and given

guns by the US government.

It's like a joint business venture between

the US government and cartels.

They have similar interests and they are exploiting

vulnerable populations for money

through different routes

Cartels make money because people have to

contract with them now to cross, and then

the US government and private corporations

make money by incarcerating undocumented people

before deporting them.

There's a group called the American Legislative

Exchange Council comprised of Republican legislators

and corporate interests and one of the corporations

involved in this group is the Corrections

Corporation of America, one of the largest

private prison groups in the country.

They got together and they wrote SB 10-70,

which was the law in Arizona that got passed

a few years ago that deputized police

to check immigration status.

We live in the border zone.

Within 100 miles of the border police and

border control have always had discretion

to do whatever they want.

But this kind of took that experience of the

border lands and internalized it and expanded

it to all of Arizona, and then with copycat

laws that were passed, to other parts of the country

It makes the risk of deportation

that much higher.

So if, y'know, an employer refuses to pay

their employee and they wanna seek justice,

it's really easy for an employer to just threaten

calling ICE on them.

And it creates an extremely,

extremely vulnerable population.

And that seems very intentional, because it

definitely benefits a lot of companies who

are able to exploit this group of people

who are now here.

I watch Trouble

We gotta Stop it

The colonial construct widely known as Canada

is often depicted as the US' mild-mannered

and polite neighbour to the north.

Oh hey there!

Do I know you from somewhere?

Oh me, no.

Then what can I do for you buddy?

Well this is a mugging?

What?

Yeah I’m sorry about that.

If I could just get that waller right there

Ok!

Keeping in line with this popular caricature,

many well-meaning and progressive Canadians

see their country as a bastion of multiculturalism,

and a welcoming home for refugees escaping

war and persecution around the globe.

We have a celebration of diversity here that

is just not found anywhere else.

I mean is not much a question of the rules,

so much as it is the spirit of openness, that

we cherish, that we’re finding ourselves

increasingly alone in the world with that spirit

But behind this self-righteous veneer lurks

a more sinister reality of Canada’s history

and its place in the world.

Putting aside the inconvenient facts that

the country was founded on the genocide of

the land's original inhabitants,

a near-blanket ban on non-European migration

until 1967, and remains one of the only countries

in the world to allow indefinite migrant detention,

it's often overlooked that Canada only shares

a land border with one country

– the United States.

I would not build a wall on the Canadian border

This particular quirk of geography has long

granted the Canadian state near-total control

over who enters its borders, and shielded

it from mass influxes of irregular migration,

outside of a few historical examples, such

as the Underground Railroad and Vietnam-era

draft-dodgers, or the more recent arrival,

in the summer of 2010, of a ship carrying

490 Tamil migrants

on the shores of so-called British Columbia.

But as the political atmosphere south of

the border continues to worsen for undocumented

migrants and anyone perceived to be a Muslim,

Canada is witnessing a rise in refugees seeking

to make use of its porous frontier to flee

the overt hostility and repression of Trump’s America

This is cardamom.

It’s a nice smell, nice,

very very nice with coffee.

This is kanafeh, it’s Palestinian.

I made it

Now when you take the coffee,

you can taste it, it’s very very nice.

You’ll like it, man.

My name is Omar Ben Ali, I’m from Palestine.

I left my country almost ten years ago.

I left my family, left my kids, left everything.

Because everybody here knows what the Israeli

occupation does to the Palestinian people.

This is my son, Yazan.

This is my small daughter, Tala.

She’s thirteen years old now,

when I left she was three.

This is my father, he died in 2014.

This is my mother, my love, my heart.

She died, she left me in September.

I didn’t see her.

I made a refugee claim in the airport in 2008.

After three years, I sat down with

somebody from immigration.

And in 20 minutes he refused me!

And he sent me a letter with around 38 reasons

why he refused me—38!

And he sat with me for 20 minutes.

I can’t return because I’ll be in danger

if I return.

They didn’t let me bring my family here.

Now if you ask me what I really want, well

okay, I live here and I’m safe, but my family

is not safe.

I need my family, I need my life,

I need my wife.

We’re at the Lacolle border crossing.

This is the main border crossing between Quebec

and the United States.

This is highway 15 on the Canadian side,

and on the other side of the border crossing it’s

I-87, that will take you down to Plattsburgh,

and Albany, and New York City.

And this is the border crossing that you want

to avoid if you want to make a refugee claim,

because according to the Safe Third Country

Agreement, if you’re coming from a safe

third country—which the United States is

defined to be—if you try to make a refugee

claim here, at the Canadian border crossing,

you will be turned back.

Then if you try to make a irregular crossing after that

and they realize you’re making a regular one

you’ll be forbidden from making a refugee claim.

So there’s an incentive, there’s a logical,

completely understandable reason why people

will make irregular crossings.

We’re on the Quebec side of the Quebec-US

border, and this is a place called Roxham Road

Roxham Road ends right there, and it continues

right over that little hill on the US side.

And it’s a place that’s internationally

famous, because people come here from the

US in order to enter Canada irregularly and

make refugee claims.

Last time I was here there was an abandoned

baby carriage on the other side, you know,

here you have some kids clothing that was left.

So this is about as far as I can go

Because if I went further another step or two

I'd be on the American side, and that’s technically

illegal, and I’m not gonna do that with

the cops right there.

People will come up this road, get off whatever

vehicle they’re in, or cab, and then come across

“Stop, if you cross here you will be arrested.

Do you speak French, do you speak English?”

Plattsburgh New York is the main gateway,

and you can get to Plattsburgh in a several

hours ride from New York City.

It also has an airport,

so people can fly in there.

And in Plattsburgh, you can take a cab here.

There’s nothing mystical or dangerous about it.

There’s thousands of miles of border.

So we’re here at a place where the RCMP

has 24 hour surveillance, but there aren't

walls, there aren't drones, there are motion

detectors, but there’s no way this can be

fully enforced.

And if there are basic networks of mutual

aid on either side, we can effectively render

this border nonexistent.

We are in Dundee, Quebec, the border is actually
a few kilometers from here.

Since January, there have been a lot of people,

more than usual, that have been crossing here.

A lot of people in the region have seen, have

helped, and it just so happens that a community

group which deals with a lot of the community

groups in the area was having a spaghetti supper

So we came down from Montreal

to give them information.

Here we have people that are fleeing persecution,

people that are afraid for their lives, people

that want to have a better life

and want to participate in society.

And they’re being told that “sorry, if

you want to come here, you can’t come to

our port of entry or to our airports.”

So for us it was evident that, not just making

information for the people in this region,

but also for the people crossing, to give

them a little bit of a step up.

What are the hurdles

that they’re going to have to face?

And we’d like for them to know about it

before they come.

The attitude that our team takes regarding

these people is, if someone is here for nefarious

purposes or to commit crimes, we want to do

everything we can to find out before we give

them to the Canada Border Services Agency.

Once they’ve crossed, as you said, you can

actively help, you can organize in your community

to help people.

And I think it’s also important to say,

there’s absolutely no reason to think—absolutely

no reason to think—that people who have

crossed irregularly, or illegally, however

you want to put it, are any more dangerous

than anybody in this room.

And so even little gestures, like putting

up a poster that says “welcome refugees,

welcome immigrants,” that makes a difference

you know, it just sets a tone.

During the summer of 2015, the world watched

in collective awe as tens of thousands of

migrants arrived on the shores of Greece,

and began gradually making their way north,

past heavily militarized borders in Macedonia,

Serbia, Croatia and Hungary before ultimately

reaching destination countries

such as Germany and Sweden.

At the time, sympathy for the refugees, many

of whom were fleeing brutal wars in Syria,

Afghanistan and Iraq, was high.

But it wasn't long before popular opinion shifted.

That year during New Year’s Eve celebrations,

a spate of sexual assaults took place in cities

across Germany, most notably in Cologne,

where hundreds of women reported being attacked

by groups of young men

from the Middle East and North Africa.

While it later emerged that some of these incidents were fabricated

such as an alleged

mob attack by Syrian refugees in Frankfurt,

the horrendous events of that night nonetheless

cemented the racist caricature of the “rapeugee”

in the popular consciousness, and helped kick-start

a furious anti-migrant reaction that was soon

exacerbated by terrorist attacks in France

and Belgium.

In the months and years that have followed,

the gates of Fortress Europe have slammed

shut, and the Schengen treaty guaranteeing

free movement within Europe's interior borders

has been effectively torn up, leaving thousands

of migrants stranded in perpetual limbo.

Responding to this dire situation, many anarchists

and other activists have stepped up to try

and help provide services and a sense of community

to those who have been rendered stateless

in a foreign land.

We had a tent camp in the beginning, for two

months, in the outskirts of Amsterdam.

Where people were camping in the mud, in the

rain, in bad tents, getting sick, without

any assistance from the state, just from the

neighbors, and people like me being there

to support them.

So they had a hard time, they suffered, and

then winter came, and there was an empty church

building, that was facilitated by

squatters in the neighborhood.

And from there, they took about 25 other buildings

to give shelter to We Are Here.

We Are Here is a collective of refugees from

different countries, different nationalities.

We focus on the people who

demand asylum in
the Netherlands.

Since 2002, a lot refugees have been kicked

out on the street.

Women, children, have been detained.

In Holland, there’s a long tradition, especially

in Amsterdam, to take empty buildings and

use them as a space for living, for working,

for culture, for anything.

However, the state has managed to control

the squatting movement by making it illegal,

so it’s hard to squat and stay inside.

Because opening a building is one thing, but

staying inside for a longer time is something

completely different.

And in a way you could say that We Are Here,

the refugee collective, has saved squatting.

Because it’s easier for people to accept

squats for refugees than for punks from England,

or tourists from Spain.

So the squatters were quite eager to help

find buildings for the refugees.

And for the police, and for the justice and

the politicians, it was not so easy to evacuate

a thing that’s raised a lot of compassion

and solidarity and sympathy among the society

in general.

People need to move from place to place because

we’re always facing eviction from one building

to another.

It’s very important for the system to keep
us

busy with something, because if they give

you a chance to relax then you will think

on your situation, and you’ll create more

demonstrations, and that will stop the system.

So that’s why they have to keep you busy,

from building to building.

We are here to get a life, a better life,

than we had in Somalia.

Life is not so good, like it is in Canada!

And this building here, we will stay here!

But still, we don’t have anything, we’re waiting.

We still have hope that we will have something.

The self-organized solidarity towards refugees

started more or less two years ago, when we

had the first Afghani refugees stranded in Athens.

So what happened was we had a lot of refugees

residing in a nearby park, in the Exarchia

neighborhood.

We tried somehow to help them out with water,

and stuff like that.

Then we realized that they were around 300

people, and water wasn’t enough.

So we made the call to an assembly, hoping

that we would get enough people to support

them for another five days at least.

And hundreds of people showed up,

from all around Athens.

All together, we tried to self organize, and

at the same time re-learned what self-organization is

So for a month we provided medical care, clothing,

three meals a day, tents, sleeping bags that

they could take with them on their journey.

That was the beginning of the major self-organization

of solidarity towards refugees.

From there, two more initiatives popped up.

One was Notara squat, the first housing squat

for refugees, and the other was Platanos,

a self-organized camp that was in Lesbos,

that was in the front lines.

When we were in Chios island,

there were demonstrations.

We talked with them,

we made friendship with them.

They told us “when you go to Athens, we

know a place that’s very good.”

So the first time we came to Athens,

we went to City Plaza.

I would say that City Plaza is a refugee accommodation

space, but not just this, it’s also a political project

More or less 400 people are living inside of City Plaza.

You have so many different nationalities inside

here, so many different people with so many

different backgrounds and intentions.

I know the history of Plaza, it was a hotel

for the Olympics in Athens.

It was closed, and nobody used it.

So the anarchists, they opened it, they repaired

it, they helped lots of people, lots of refugees,

to come here and live a little bit better

than the other camps.

As far as I know, we haven’t lost even one

immigrant or refugee.

No one has committed suicide or got killed.

In camps, you have all the time suicides,

desperate people, people that are dislocated

from the major city centers.

And in contrast to that, you have the squats

that are inside the fabric of the city.

Especially in Exarchia, where we have more

than six squats, housing squats for refugees.

You see the people in the squats that are

not integrated, but they feel like they’re

a part of this small community.

Given the central role that they play in shaping

and determining the course of our lives, and

the massive amount of resources put into militarizing

and securing them, it's important to remember

that, at the end of the day,

borders are just imaginary lines.

For the vast majority of human history,

borders didn't exist.

They are, and have always been, tools of colonization,

used to divide the world into distinct populations

that can be placed at the service of competing

centres of power.Their imposition has always

provoked resistance, and has only been made

possible through the massive application of

organized violence.

Under today's increasingly globalized capitalist

system, their primary function is to carve

the world into distinct economic markets that

can be more easily managed by local governments

for the benefit of a transnational corporate elite.

Politicians and media outfits simultaneously

present borders as impenetrable barriers and

fragile bulwarks of civilization constantly

under threat from dangerous outside forces...

but the reality is that they are arbitrary

make-believe lines intended to keep regular

people divided and fighting amongst ourselves.

By demystifying borders and robbing them of

their power to control our lives, we can come

to a better understanding of our collective

interests as human beings and begin to act

together to dismantle the system

they're meant to uphold.

We were something like 80 people on that boat.

It was so dangerous.

They just told us “you have to go straight.”

They said “you have to just go straight

and those mountains in front of you:

that is Greece.

And anybody of you know how to drive this boat?”

The current political climate is pretty terrifying

for a lot of directly-affected communities,

and it's not clear how it's gonna shake out.

This is a really crucial moment for people

to be doing organizing against the internalization

of the border.

Having a criminal history, even if that just

means crossing, disqualifies you from most

forms of relief.

So what that means is that anybody who has

been caught crossing the border has almost

no prospect of ever having legal status in

this country as it stands currently.

So it's really important to push against this

idea that it is okay to deport criminals,

or that somehow the category of criminal

is a legitimate one.

People should approach local organizing, wherever

they are, with the same urgency that we approach

organizing on the border.

If you can keep somebody in their community

by doing anti-deportation work or creating

protection networks, that means people aren't

going to be coming back through the border

and aren't going to be crossing through the desert.

That might be putting together protection

packets and different things.

It's not always glamorous work but it's extremely

important to keep communities whole.

Just show up and be humble, and be ready to

listen and do your homework and learn about

what's going on, and have a real open heart.

Once they're here, or they've crossed the

border... where are they gonna go?

What are they gonna do?

What's their possibilities of staying?

How are we going to help give them the proper

community support that we would want in the

same situation?

We need to make regular and normal irregular
crossings.

We need to make regular and normal the idea

that it's perfectly natural to just walk across,

and that these states that are defined as

the Canadian colonial state and the American

imperialist colonial state are things that

we resist and we oppose, but we're not going

to let the borders get in the way of us having

mutual solidarity.

We can't say “hey we don't want you here.

But we go there and we destroy your land and

we take your resources, and we say hey now

there's no clean water, but we got tonnes

of clean water here.

We're not gonna help you.”

We all have a history and we all have a lineage

of how we got here, to this exact place on

the earth.

There's an expression that often the police

is in our head, and I feel the border is in

our head as well.

Yes... if you cross right here, the RCMP are

right there, and there's likely some level

of ICE enforcement going on.

But just a few hundreds of meters that way

or that way, you could cross.

There's no way that this thousands of miles

of border can be enforced.

I think, you know, closing borders is not

really the solution and it's not gonna work.

As long as they close the borders, the longer

the people will get more motivation to communicate

with each other.

Look, the Berlin border, which divided West

and East Germany before.

Look at after how long, people were breaking out.

And Germany now is one country.

I'm not sure about you but I was born with

two legs and they function, so I walk.

And I walk where I want to go.

That's called freedom of movement.

We found out ourselves in the street, the

only one thing we can do to help ourselves

- solidarity and togetherness,

that's how we start.

Solidarity and creating visibilities.

In my view solidarity requires the capacity

to step into the other's shoes.

Not so much erasing the differences, but using

the diversity to move forward.

We learn from them how to evolve our language

and how we can break the borders of our mind

and political beliefs and lower them so that

we can listen to them.

So the whole process of finding the common

ground with people who come from completely

different cultural, social, political background

and meeting somewhere in the middle and there

trying to form a new kind of space...

I think it's one of the best political actions

that can happen.

Because you know, afterwards what follows

is that the person who is next to you... he/she

might not say anarchist, but you know he/she

is a comrade in a much deeper kind of sense.

Charity is not the right approach in my view,

because that's not solidarity.

Compassion is okay.

Compassion in the sense of trying to feel

what the other feels and see how you can walk

along together.

But again, compassion itself is not enough.

You have, as an individual, to use your powers

and your skills and put them to use

like everybody else

And I think that we can learn a lot from each

other as long as we're rooted and grounded

geographically in our place.

It's great to go other places to learn about

struggles... as long as you can bring it home.

We have a tendency to react to things.

They do something and we react to it.

We have to create the events that they will

make the others react to us.

If it's a movement it has to be everywhere.

We have to create a network.

We have to, all-together, to organize.

Self-organize into something grander.

Migrants who are not able to return to their

country and are not allowed to stay...

where can they go?

They ask for a normal life.

As we continue to face increasingly destabilizing

wars, surging global inequality and climate-change

fueled ecological devastation, the coming

century is poised to see unprecedented levels

of human migration.

Exactly what form this takes will depend,

in part, on our collective initiative, and

our capacity for enacting meaningful solidarity

that stretches across, and ultimately undermines

the borders that currently divide us.

So at this point, we’d like to remind you

that Trouble is intended to be watched in

groups, and to be used as a resource to promote

discussion and collective organizing.

If there are no local migrant support or anti-border

initiatives in your area, please consider

getting together with some comrades, screening

this film and discussing what kind of project

would work best.

Interested in running regular screenings at

your campus, infoshop, community center, or

even just at your home with friends?

Become a Trouble-Maker!

For 10 bucks a month, we’ll hook you up

with an advanced copy of the show, and a screening

kit featuring additional resources and some

questions you can use to get a discussion

going.

If you can’t afford to support us financially,

no worries!

You can stream and/or download all our content

for free off our website: sub.media/trouble.

If you’ve got any suggestions for show topics,

or just wanna get in touch, drop us a line

at [e-mail].

We’re excited to see that people have been

busy setting up trouble-maker chapters, and

wanna send a shout out to new chapters in

Williamsburgh, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Cotali,

San Antonio, Cambridge, Burlington, Amsterdam,

Milwaukee, Springfield, Sockell, Sherbrooke,

Doonside, Ottawa, Chicago, Madison and Slovenia.

This episode would not have been possible

without the generous support of Brandon, Julian

and Ross

Now get out there, and make some trouble!