Stay ConnectedMigration Conversations is a podcast that invites persons to share their migration stories. Hosted by Professor Jamie Liew, each episode is an in-depth conversation with people who have experienced the Canadian immigration system or other migration regimes up close. We talk to migrants, immigrants, lawyers, policy makers, advocates and experts. We hope that these conversations shed light on the challenges migrants face through their own voices.
Please note this podcast is not legal advice.
Copyright: © 2020
In this episode, I speak with Petra Molnar about her new book The Walls Have Eyes where her research uncovers what technological experiments are taking place at various borders around the world on migrants as test subjects, and how the consequences of greater use and lack of oversight over tech use on people will shape our society in harmful ways. We discuss how such technology may reinforce and reproduce colonial, racist and oppressive ideas and systems.
Martin Luther King Jr once said that civil disobedience is not lawlessness but a higher form of lawfulness. In this episode, I speak with Faisal Bhabha, Irina Ceric and Paul Champ, lawyers and scholars intimate with protest and law. We talk about three case studies and what are appropriate legal limits to protest in a democratic society.
Meet immigration and refugee lawyer, Debbie Rachlis. We talk about the Gaza Special Measures Program, why nobody has been able to come through that program, and what it tells us about IRCC's ad hoc approaches to humanitarian crises.
Meet Douglas Chong, director of the Hawai'i Chinese History Centre. We talk about the long historical presence of Chinese in Hawai'i, how personal and community archives are essential to counter narratives produced by Western sources, and why it is important to remember the past.
Meet Esther Yoo, Director of the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai'i. We talk about how immigration and refugee law clients and issues are unique in Hawai'i and the kind of representation and challenges her clinic and students address. They provide services to unaccompanied children, migrant workers and asylum seekers through mobile clinics. We also talk about the tensions that migrants working in farms and tourist spots like hotels, owned by corporations in continental US, represent vis-a-vis Native Hawaiian and local claims of dispossession and imperialism.
Meet Dr. Nandita Sharma, author of Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants. Her provocative book interrogates the nation-state system and the anti-colonial and post-colonial aspiration to seek nationalized sovereignty through a terr=itorialized form - that sovereignty as territorial rule is the pinnacle of liberation for some communities. In this conversation, I ask Dr. Sharma some tough questions and she provides an articulate invitation to think about things differently as we discuss how we move towards a decolonized and more equitable world.
Meet Dr. Kyle Kajihiro who teaches at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in Ethnic Studies and Geography and Environment. His research focuses on U.S. imperial formations, militarization, and Indigenous and decolonial social movements in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region. He is also a founding member of Hawai'i Peace and Justice, an organization working to promote peace and social justice in Hawai'i through community organizing, popular education, art and nonviolent direct action. In this episode, we talk about the Detour project an educational tour project which give visitors insights into the realities of militarization and tourism . If you have been or plan on traveling to Hawai'i, this is a must listen to episode - a kind of audio guide alternative to the info you might receive otherwise.
Meet Dr. Kyle Kajihiro who teaches at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in Ethnic Studies and Geography and Environment. His research focuses on U.S. imperial formations, militarization, and Indigenous and decolonial social movements in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region. He is also a founding member of Hawai'i Peace and Justice, an organization working to promote peace and social justice in Hawai'i through community organizing, popular education, art and nonviolent direct action. In this episode, we talk about the Detour project an educational tour project which give visitors insights into the realities of militarization and tourism . If you have been or plan on traveling to Hawai'i, this is a must listen to episode - a kind of audio guide alternative to the info you might receive otherwise.
In the 4th episode of the Hawai'i series of the Migration Conversations Podcast, I speak with Dr. John Rosa, and associate professor of history at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Dr. Rosa’s research focuses on the social and cultural history of twentieth-century Hawai’i and the histories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. He is the author of the acclaimed book Local Story: The Massie/Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History - a riveting book on the legal proceedings surrounding a white woman who accused five racialized men of rape in the 1930s and the murder of Joseph Kahahawai.
In the third instalment of Migration Conversations' Hawai'i Series, I speak with Dr. Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, a professor in political science at the College of Social Sciences, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. His research focuses on the mobilization of rights discourses in various contexts. We discuss his new book Law by Night, nocturnal legal theory and how law is both present and absent from this temporal space. In our discussion he raises questions about the right to sleep, the freedom to organize and assert agency at night, and how night has shaped the politics of race, vigilantism, gun ownership and white feminist actions like Take Back the Night.
Welcome to the second episode of a special series of Migration Conversations in Hawai'i. In this episode I am in conversation with Reece Jones, a professor at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa in the department of geography and environment. The author of four books in this episode, we talk about his book titled White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall. Check out his latest book: Nobody is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States.
Welcome to the first episode of a special series of Migration Conversations in Hawai'i. In this episode I am in conversation with Noelani Goodyear-Ka’ōpua in an outdoor park with light rain tickling us. Born to young activists and UH graduates, Noelani grew up around Hawai’I communities and movements organizing around evictions, environmental degradation and economic injustice. Now a professor in political science at the College of Social Sciences, University of Hawai’I at Manoā, her work focuses on documenting, theorizing and practising Hawaiian sovereignty movement and invests her time and energy into education and the ‘āina, nurturing critical thinkers and doers. Her book Nā Wāhine Koa: Hawaiian Women for Sovereignty and Demilitarization is a collaboration with four activist elders who helped catalyze Hawaiian movements of the late 20th century.
This episode features the collective work of three scholars about their book, Containing Diversity: Canada and the Politics of Immigration in the 21st Century - an important teaching tool but also essential reading for those working and thinking about immigration policy. Yasmeen Abu-Laban, Ethel Tungohan, Christina Gabriel talk about care work as a methodology, the contradictions in our immigration policy and the preferred versus the restricted categories that animate our system.
In this episode I speak with Gabriela Casineanu about the Immigrant Writers Association, how writing can be cathartic and an important way to share stories and perspectives of migrants. Check out their four anthologies of writing from various writers.
Meet Renisa Mawani, Canada Research Chair in Colonial Legal Histories at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of Across Oceans of Law published by Duke University Press. I speak with Renisa about her research tracing the currents and counter-currents of British / colonial law and Indian radicalism through the 1914 journey of the SS Komagata Maru.
Meet Heba Gowayed, an economic sociologist at Boston University. She is the author of "Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential". Her book follows the journeys of Syrians who sought refuge in Canada, Germany and the United States. Dr. Gowayed's insights in how states design refugee programs and how that affects people's resettlement experiences is illuminating.
Meet Jennifer Elrick, professor in the Department of Sociology at McGill University. Author of Making Middle-Class Multiculturalism: Immigration Bureaucrats and Policymaking in Postwar Canada, we talk about how bureaucrats in the federal government drove policy making in the area of immigration through their review of who is admissible to Canada in individual decision-making. A fascinating look at how Canada's immigration system was built in the administrative arm and how perceptions of race, skillsets and family are reflected in policy.
Meet Natalie Wee, a queer poet who writes about migration, borders, papers, and interrogates what it means to be a queer, racialized person in Canada. We talk about what it is like to live with precarious immigration status, and how writing is a source of comfort and advocacy.
Meet Deepan Budlakoti. Born and raised in Canada, Deepan had a Canadian birth certificate and Canadian passport. Then one day he was told he was not a citizen and overnight he became a foreigner and stateless. We talk about how he became stateless, what his life in limbo is like, and what you can do to support his fight to reclaim his citizenship.
Meet Dr. Shauna Labman, the expert on refugee resettlement in Canada. She is an award winning author of two books: Crossing Law's Border: Canada's Refugee Resettlement Program and Strangers to Neighbours: Refugee Sponsorship in Context. We talk about what is resettlement, the complementary features of the program, and critiques and concerns as the program evolves. We also talk about the current refugee situation globally in Afghanistan and Ukraine in particular.
Meet Carrianne Leung, Jenny Heijun Wills and Lindsay Wong, all award winning authors in Canada. We talk about the craft of writing, the fluidity and complication of identity as writers, and how migration and diasporic experiences inform their work.
Meet author Francesca Ekwuyasi, author of Butter Honey Pig Bread. Her debut novel was longlisted for the 2020 Giller Prize, finalist for CBC's 2021 Canada Reads competition, the 2021 Lambda Literary Ward, 2021 Governor General's Award, the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the 2021 ReLit Award. We talk about migration but also about folklore, food, relationships and writing.
Meet Kashif Ali, a criminalized migrant who was detained in Canada for seven years. Kashif talks about his addition, how his addiction led to his criminalization and repeated imprisonment, and how his statelessness kept him in prison indefinitely without any hope for deportation. Kashif hopes his experience will convince people that immigration detention should not be used to manage our borders.
Meet Jared Will, an immigration and refugee lawyer, who is well known, among other things, for representing persons in immigration detention. We talk about the shortcomings of the immigration detention system, but why detention should not be used at all, and the limits of legal remedies in such a system.
Meet Alvin Brown, a Black man deported from Canada. Alvin Brown was adopted as a child and grew up in Canada. Unbeknownst to him, Alvin was not a Canadian citizen and had never acquired citizenship. As a young man, he came into conflict with the criminal law which rendered him inadmissible to Canada. Alvin tells us his heartbreaking story about the years spent in Canadian immigration detention awaiting to be deported, his deportation and his life today.
Meet Justice Mavin Wong. She was appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice in 2000 and currently presides at College Park Court, which is one of two criminal courthouses in downtown Toronto. Prior to her appointment, Justice Wong practised as a criminal defence lawyer specializing in youth justice cases. In our conversation we talk about her personal links with the infamous Supreme Court of Canada case of Quong Wing, and her advice for young lawyers aspiring to be judges.
Statelessness & COVID-19 This is an encore presentation of a webinar featuring 5 grassroots organizations and researchers sharing their observations and insights of the experiences of stateless persons in the pandemic in Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Kuwait and Malaysia. Sponsored by the University of Ottawa Public Law Centre and the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, the presentations flow from a themed commentary that is published in volume 3(1) of the Statelessness & Citizenship Review.
Meet the Honourable Ahmed Hussen. He is a graduate of the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, co-founded Regent Park Community Council, was national president of the Canadian Somali Congress, and practised criminal, immigration and human rights law. Elected in 2015, Minister Hussen served as Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and now is Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. This is a pre-recorded event hosted by the University of Ottawa Public Law Centre. Professor Vanessa MacDonnell and I trace his remarkable journey from refugee to law school, to the Federal Cabinet.
Meet Elene Lam, the founder and executive director of Butterfly, an Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network. The tragic deaths of six Asian women in Atlanta have highlighted the intersectional reasons why they were targeted and killed. Perceived as foreigner persons, migrants engaging in immoral and illegal work, fetishized women, and those contributing to the spread of the coronavirus, Butterfly advocates for the full decriminalization of sex work, for full status for migrant sex workers, for immigration laws to allow sex work to be recognized as work, and for no cops at workplaces, among other calls to action. Listen to Elene explain why her organization is part of an alliance of 25 sex worker organizations bringing a Charter challenge to the criminal laws affecting sex work, among other legal reforms.
Meet Justice Douglas Campbell, the longest serving judge in Canada. He was appointed to the British Columbia Provincial Court in 1974 at the age of 29 and then in 1995 to the Federal Court of Canada, retiring in 2020. With a docket largely focused on immigration and refugee law, we talk about Justice Campbell's time on the bench, what compassionate and ethical judging looks like, how being a lawyer and judge requires continuous learning and listening and most importantly how judging requires you to identify and respect the person behind every case.
Meet Laura Madokoro, historian and Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University. She is the author of Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War published by Harvard in 2016. We talk about why studying the past is important, what historical exclusions say about our immigration system, how the grand narratives of humanitarianism may be disguising violence and displacement, and the settler colonial project of using race to inform our immigration policies.
Meet Bob Rae, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York. Mr. Rae was Premier of Ontario (1990-1995), Interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (2011-2013), Canada's Special Envoy to Myanmar (2017-2018) and Canada's Special Envoy on Humanitarian and Refugee Issues (2020). We talk about the statelessness, genocide and forced displacement of Rohingya in Myanmar, the global refugee crisis, and Canada's role in the world today. Our conversation delves into issues of the rule of law, how discourse can affect the way people are identified, and contested existence and exclusion.
Meet Souheil Benslimane, a self-identified "illegalized" and criminalized migrant currently being processed for deportation from Canada. We talk about his experience being incarcerated, how he feels he is being punished twice through the immigration system, and his journey to becoming an abolitionist. We also talk about the important work he does with the Jail Accountability and Information Line Hotline in raising awareness of the conditions and hardships prisoners face and why it is important to critically think and challenge the carceral system.
Meet my father, James Liew. His status as a previously stateless person and his migration story to Canada is the inspiration for my current research on statelessness and law. Listen to us talk about his past and his journey to Canada. Consider how he characterized the country he was born in and his idea of what citizenship is about.
Meet Harsha Walia, Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, co-founder of No One is Illegal and author of Undoing Border Imperialism. We talk about what it means to be a good community member, why we can't talk about borders and migration without talking about race, and interrogate the critiques placed against the call to undo borders.
Meet Yodit Girmay, a former settlement worker and an Equity and Inclusion Consultant who provides diversity, anti-oppression and cultural competency training. Yodit talks about the myriad of invisible ways settlement workers aid newcomers, but also how they can be helpful in a legal process. We also talk about the delicate balance in setting boundaries with your ethnic community, with professionals, including lawyers, and with your personal life. Yodit also talks about the systemic ways in which all settlement workers do anti-oppression, anti-racism work.
Meet Petra Molnar, a lawyer-researcher, Associate Director of the Refugee Law Lab, York University, working at the intersection of human rights, migration and technology. We talk about the ecosystem by which migration tech is being used to survey and make administrative decisions related to immigration, refugee and citizenship law. Drones, facial recognition, AI lie detectors, and other tools are being deployed at the borders without any oversight. Petra also gives us a sense of what is now going on in the European Union, Greece and in particular the new refugee camp in Lesvos, and why we should be gazing at these spaces more.
Meet Karen Cocq, Projects & Campaign Coordinator for Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Canada’s largest coalition of self-organized groups of migrant workers. In this episode we talk about the #StatusForAll campaign and the call for material changes in the immigration system to confer permanent status upon arrival so that all persons can access health care, labour rights, and to enable the elimination of exploitative, abusive and punitive working conditions that persist due to the temporary and precarious status of migrants. Check out migrantrights.ca for more on the anti-racist call for change, the #StatusForAll campaign and for information on how to support it.
Meet Frédérique Chabot, the Director of Health Promotion and Interim Executive Director of Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights, an organization that promotes health, wellbeing and rights related to sexuality and reproduction. We talk about the barriers the COVID-19 pandemic has erected in accessing abortion health care and how these barriers are more severe for migrant women given that access is reliant on the immigration status one has. As you listen to this episode, consider how there is a need to consider access to health care with a gendered and racialized lens and how pandemic responses so far have ignored migrant women.
Meet Skyler, a former refugee claimant who made a claim for protection in Canada because she feared for her life as a lesbian in the United States Army. In this conversation, we talk about what it feels like to go through the refugee determination system at the Immigration and Refugee Board, and the Federal Court of Canada. For more information about her case, you can read Smith v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2009 FC 1194.
Meet Michael Bossin, one of the co-counsel for the Applicants in the Canadian Council for Refugees v Canada decision, where the Federal Court of Appeal found the Safe Third Country Agreement unconstitutional. In this episode, we talk how the decision found the STCA violates the Charter rights (section 7) of refugee claimants, the legal analysis behind the reasoning, and the immense work behind the scenes undertaken to build the case.
Meet Rema Jamous Imseis, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' Representative to Canada. In this episode, Rema provides an introduction to the work of the UNHCR and what UNHCR does in Canada. We also talk about the current and emerging challenges to refugee protection globally and in Canada.
Meet Betsy Kane, an immigration lawyer who is a certified specialist in Canadian citizenship and immigration law. In our conversation together we talk about the challenges of practising immigration law during the pandemic, how difficult it is to keep up with the constant and ongoing changes made to immigration policy and programming, and the future problems or implications to some of the measures being imposed right now on people on the move.
Meet Michael Molloy, former Ambassador of Canada to Jordan and a former public servant with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Immigration. Mike oversaw the resettlement of Indochinese refugees in Canada in 1979-80 and is the author of Running on Empty: Canada and the Indochinese Refugees, 1975-1980. In this episode we talk about the creation of the refugee resettlement program in Canada, and how law and policy can be created and deployed in quick, flexible and innovative ways to respond to crises
Meet Will Tao and Lou Janssen Dangzalan, two immigration lawyers in Canada. In our conversation we talk about the Humanitarian and Compassionate (H&C) Grounds application in the immigration regime, how it has become more than a failsafe mechanism and why it can be the most important solicitor work an immigration lawyer can do today. In this episode, we talk about discretion, the labour involved in putting together H&C applications, and how it can be both rewarding for your client but a sign that the immigration system needs to fill a gap.
Meet Ebrahim, a Black, stateless person who was in a Canadian prison for six and a half years even though he has never been convicted of a crime in Canada. In this episode we talk about why Ebrahim came to Canada, how he was arrested and detained for immigration-related reasons, and how he was denied release 72 times in a row before he was freed. Ebrahim will tell you how this experience has changed him and what he hopes for in the future.
Meet Montana Adams, a talented Indigenous playwright from Akwesasne. In this episode we talk about her play, "My Good Friend Jay", how she interrogates the colonial borders that cut through her community's territory, how borders are arbitrary yet imposing, and how these borders affect their daily lives. Along with this episode view her play here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xbZyLNme0s). You can also read Audra Simpson's book Mohawk Interruptus: political life across the borders of settler states for more information.
Jacqueline Bonisteel is an immigration lawyer in Ottawa and an expert in the economic class in the immigration system. She gives us a primer on the various permanent resident programs currently in place and we talk about some of the opportunities but also challenges migrants face in accessing the economic class. We also discuss our hopes for the future development of this rapidly and ever changing area of law.
Thelma is not her real name, but her experiences are. In this conversation, Thelma talks about how she came from Jamaica to work in Canada’s agriculture sector as a temporary foreign worker. She talks about the labour, conditions but also the injuries she suffered, and has a passionate plea about calling for permanent residence for migrant workers, and the ability to bring their families with them when they come to Canada to provide the essential services of putting vegetables on our dinner table.
This is part 2 of a two-part episode where we speak with Mary Jane and Milanie, two former migrant caregivers and Aimee, an advocate with Migrante Ottawa, a cause-oriented organization that promotes the rights and welfare of Filipino migrants in Canada. We talk about the essential work Mary Jane and Milanie did to care for Canadian children and elderly, the conditions that they were subject to and their heartbreaking separation from family. They express the importance of advocacy and support provided by grassroots organizations like Migrante. We discuss how immigration law and the design of the temporary foreign worker program shaped their lived experiences.
This is part 1 of a two-part episode where we speak with Mary Jane and Milanie, two former migrant caregivers and Aimee, an advocate with Migrante Ottawa, a cause-oriented organization that promotes the rights and welfare of Filipino migrants in Canada. We talk about the essential work Mary Jane and Milanie did to care for Canadian children and elderly, the conditions that they were subject to and their heartbreaking separation from family. They express the importance of advocacy and support provided by grassroots organizations like Migrante. We discuss how immigration law and the design of the temporary foreign worker program shaped their lived experiences.
Meet Roisah, a previously stateless person, now Malaysian citizen. When I first met Roisah, she was on the precipice of becoming a legal adult in Malaysian law and was racing against clock to obtain citizenship before she became ineligible as a result of no longer being a minor. We talk about how she discovered she was stateless at a government counter when she was 12 years old, what she had to endure, what kinds of administrative work and advocacy she did, and the performances she had to give in order to obtain citizenship.
Migration Conversations is a podcast that invites persons to share their migration stories. Each episode is an in-depth conversation with people who have experienced the Canadian immigration system or other migration regimes up close. We talk to migrants and immigrants, but also to lawyers, policy makers, and advocates to get their perspective and help us understand the complicated immigration legal regime. We hope that these conversations shed light on the challenges migrants face through their own voices. This season, we talk to a previously stateless person, a former immigration detainee, former temporary foreign workers, and one of the architects of the refugee resettlement program, among others.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
