Milton Daschevi, a construction worker here, and his family decided to go underground rather than abiding by a deportation order by the immigration authorities. He was scheduled to be deported back to his native Brazil August 12. Instead, a public fight has opened up for their right to work and live in Canada that has drawn the support of his union, the Carpenters, Drywall and Allied Workers Union, local clergy, and others.

“We call them undocumented workers,” said Carlos Pimentel, a spokesperson for the Central Ontario Regional Council of Carpenters. “The stigma of being ‘illegal’ conjures up the image these people are out there stealing, maiming, building bombs in their basement, and planning to overthrow the government. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Universal Workers Local 138, the largest construction workers union in the Toronto area, has called for measures that would allow undocumented workers to apply for temporary work permits with the possibility of becoming permanent residents.

Andy Manaham, a spokesperson for the union, which represents some 30,000 workers in the area, estimates that there are at least 9,000 undocumented workers in the Toronto area in the construction trades.

The Toronto Star reported August 10 that 50 members of Local 675 of the drywallers’ union, of which Daschevi is a member, turned up for a meeting organized by the union on two days notice, to discuss how to help them secure immigration status.

Most recently, five families, from Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Serbia, and Colombia, have sought sanctuary in churches in an attempt to prevent their deportation. The families fear political or religious persecution if they are sent back to their countries.

“It shows the extent to which people are willing to go,” to fight for their lives, said Darryl Gray, minister of Union United Church in Montreal, who has offered his church as a sanctuary to an Ethiopian family of four. There are some 20 other churches ready to open their doors to other families, according to Gray. There have been about 30 cases of individuals and families that have sought refuge in churches across Canada, Gray added. The government has given permission to only 19 of them to remain here, and some have decided to stay in the country in spite of rulings against them.

Canadian immigration authorities have deported many of them to the United States, in the cases where that was their first point of arrival. Once there, they are put in detention indefinitely while they wait for a resolution of their case, or ultimately get deported.

A rally is planned for October 9 in Ottawa to win support for the refugee families.  
 
 
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