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Yeah, I mean, what we have was a number of immigration enforcement raids,
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um, on a number of construction worksites,
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and undocumented workers, or workers who um y'know currently don't have legal work permits in canada
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but are otherwise going through the immigration process,
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were picked up, arrested, detained.
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Uh, this was at the Victoria (Drive) site, was done, at the behest of a reality tv show,
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which is incredibly alarming, the fact that there is a reality tv company that is making money,
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including a vancouver-based entertainment production company,
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that is profiting off the fact that people are going through, yknow, being arrested, being interrogated,
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and being violently shackled as they're being detained and deported.
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And so the fact that this immigration style raid happened
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is yknow really reminiscent again of U.S. style enforcement.
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A lot of enforcement was present
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and then coupled with the fact that there's a reality tv show
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i think both together are really quite alarming.
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[ interviewer ] And what's the problem with the tv show um showing what border agents do day in and day out?
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Well I think the premise of it is what's disturbing, right?
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Which is the fact that um tv sells sensationalism,
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so the fact that border service agencies are gonna be --I would argue--
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are going to be more kind of forced to make their raids more sensationalist.
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They're gonna be treating people in, yknow like what we saw,
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where they had a massive team of enforcement officers kind of come down on people,
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and also the fact that its a basic violation of people's rights.
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So today I talked to some of the workers at the jail,
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and yknow, so Force 4 is not confirming or denying that they were filming,
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but the workers said that, yknow, in the jail, while they're being detained,
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guards and officers are telling them that they have to sign a consent form.
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So there's absolutely no consent,
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and if there's consent it's under conditions of duress.
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So I think it's really disturbing that we're, um, yknow,
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allowing entertainment to be made and profited off of
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that's basically at the expense of people.
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Again and I think it's yknow it's disturbing.
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It's like all these American reality tv shows like the cops shows, right?
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Where you see these violent take-downs,
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and brutal, again, violations of people's privacy,
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and, again, it glorifies what border service agencies do,
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without looking at the fact that these are family members who are being ripped apart.
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Without looking at the impacts of what they're actually doing, right?
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It's completely one-sided, it's like embedded journalism.
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There's no talking to these people about their lived reality,
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it's just trying to yknow show these border services agencies as glorified police officers.
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They're in different legal situations.
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So some of them are on expired visas
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some of them are actually currently going through different immigration processes.
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Some of them are currently making sponsorship applications.
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Some of them have gone through the refugee process.
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So there's actually a range of, um, of legal statuses in terms of the workers.
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Yeah, they're trying to do their job,
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and I think the question is yknow what does it mean to have massive-style enforcement raids
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where workers have been working for years and years and years
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many of them are currently going through the immigration processes,
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there's also the oxymoron of the immigration system,
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which is that a lot of people aren't actually given work permits,
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but are somehow expected to take care of themselves and their families,
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so they end up in situations where they're working despite not being given a work permit.
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And so I do think there's a question of yknow why are we seeing this level of enforcement?
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And why aren't we instead talking about
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why is there are greater number of workers who are not able to work legally in this country?
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And that is, I think, the main question.