Border-making is foundational to the regulation of racialized

populations that extend beyond – borders authorize imperialist

missions abroad in the name of protecting the body politic via
exclusion with borders and the commodification of labor to
expand neoliberal regimes of governance.
Upadhyay 16 (Nishant, Assistant Professor in Women's and Gender Studies at
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Ph.D. in Graduate Program in Social and
Political Thought at York University, South Asian “We’ll Sail Like Columbus”: Race,
Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, and the Making of South Asian Diasporas in Canada.
Pg.84-90) OD
Colonial logics have produced racial and gendered bodies as well as arbitrary physical
borders. For white settler states, these arbitrary borders have been the
central feature of maintaining their settler-sovereignty on colonized lands
and categorizing racialized bodies within varying hierarchies of citizenship.24
Along with processes of settler colonialism, anti-Black racism, and Islamophobia, cartographies of exclusionary/inclusionary borders

have been fundamental in settler-state formations. On the one hand, the settler states have created arbitrary borders to regulate
indigeneity and separate Indigenous communities on the basis of these borders. Jodi Byrd notes the inherent relations between

settler state’s border-making and settler colonialism: “The processes through which
the borders of the US become ineluctable or natural is the same process
through which American Indians becomes invisibilized and minoritorized 24
On border and boundaries as racial and colonial mechanisms, see: Altamirano-Jiménez, “The Colonization and Decolonization”; Anzaldua; Bannerji, Thinking Through; Dhamoon,
Identity/Difference; Espiritu; Hogue; Lawrence, “Gender, Race and the Regulation”; N. Sharma, “On Being Not Canadian”; A. Simpson; and Walia, Undoing Border Imperialism. 85 within the

For instance, the borders between Canada and the U.S were central to
United States” (“‘Been to the Nation’” 45).

regulating Indigenous borders and separating categories of Métis and Indians. Michel Hogue
elaborates: In western North American, nation-making hinged on subverting the sovereignty of Indigenous people and inquired reworking the social relationships that sustained earlier

communities and replacing them with new sociolegal boundaries. (5) Border and boundary-making has been
foundational to white settler colonial processes. On the other hand, these
borders regulate racialized bodies’ inclusion into the settler states and
construct varying arbitrary categories such as those of the “skilled migrant,”
“legal immigrant,” “refugee,” “asylum seeker,” “temporary worker,”
“permanent resident,” and “illegal migrant.” These settler states are inherently illegal on colonized Indigenous lands and
continue to exclude Indigenous peoples, Blacks, Muslims, and other racialized peoples from the violent processes of bordermaking. In this section, I explore the

labelling of desirable and undesirable bodies and construction of borders to

include some bodies and exclude others. Along with processes of settler colonialism, anti-Black racism, and Islamophobia, border-
making remains one of the prime logics of white supremacy and colonialism. Border-making processes are central to the maintenance of white settler states. Harsha Walia calls

processes of border-making “border imperialism.” She writes: The racist, classist,

heteropatriarchal, and ableist construction of the legal/desirable migrant justifies the
criminalization of the illegal/undesirable migrant, which then emboldens the conditions
for capital to further exploit the labor of migrants. Migrants’ precarious legal status and precarious stratification in the labor force are
further inscribed by racializing discourses that cast migrants of color as eternal outsiders: in the nation state but not of the nation-state. Coming full circle, border imperialism illuminates how

identity and inclusion within Western borders are linked to the

colonial anxieties about

racist justifications for imperialist mission beyond Western borders that generate cycles of mass displacement. (Undoing Border
Imperialism 6, emphasis in original) 86 Walia demonstrates how the processes of racialized migration are produced and maintained through the structural violences of colonialism, imperialism,

the
and capitalism. She expounds how these processes are embedded in technologies of heteropatriarchy, ableism, and state-defined notions of criminality. She highlights that

processes of mass displacements in the global South, and criminalization and labour
exploitation of racialized peoples in the global north, are inextricably linked to capitalism
and empire. The processes that facilitate displacement include: legacies of colonialism, poverty and impoverishment, wars and mass destruction, neoliberal exploits and climate
change—all at the hands of western powers. Moreover, they are all bound together in white settler states due to past and ongoing processes of dispossession and displacement of Indigenous
peoples. This is illustrated through the examples discussed in the introduction of the Komagata Maru and Tamil refugees. Yên Lê Espiritu in her work on Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. offers
another instance of these pernicious continuities. By bringing together histories of U.S. imperialism, war, and genocide in the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S., Espiritu connects Vietnamese
displacement to that of Filipinos, Chamorros, and Indigenous peoples, “making intelligible the military colonialisms that engulf these spaces” along with the pervasive construction of discourses of
 Further, the borders also limit Indigenous peoples’
“refugee crises” and “rescue-and-liberation” (47-48).

movement through them, as Indigenous communities along the borders

claim sovereignty on both sides of the border (Altamirano-Jiménez; Hogue; A. Simpson). Settler state borders affect the
movement of all Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Moreover, the settler state uses the technologies of regulation deployed against Indigenous peoples on racialized peoples. In a similar manner,
Mona Oikawa argues that the racial violence waged against Japanese Canadians during the internment is connected to and dependent upon the violences to which Indigenous peoples have been 87
subjected through processes of colonization (“Connecting the Internment”). Manu Vimalassery demonstrates the continuities between American “War on Terror” and Indigenous dispossession
(“Antecedents of Imperial Incarceration”). In his theorization of connections between the U.S. prison in Guantánamo to incarcerate “terrorists” and the prison in Florida in the nineteenth century
to imprison Indigenous peoples, Vimalassery notes that “There is a connection to draw out here, with the indigenous sovereign subject as the limits of U.S. imperialism, of settler colonialism as a

Thus, contemporary regulation of racialized bodies is

process of incarceration overlaying indigenous sovereign space” (351-52).

an extension of settler states’ continued occupation of Indigenous lands. Walia identifies four overlapping
and interlocking principles of border imperialism: mass displacement and border securitization; criminalization of those deemed “illegal” migrants; racialized hierarchies of citizenship; and

the simultaneous process of displacement

exploitation of migrant labor (5). The first foundational principle, Walia argues, is

due to capitalist and colonial exploitation and the “fortification of borders” (41).
Both processes are generated and enforced by states of the global north. Connected to the first, the second principle criminalizes and prohibits migration, and constructs categories of “illegal” and

Legality is
“alien” (53). “Legal,” “model” and “desirable” migrants co-exist within the same structures where “illegal,” “criminal,” and “unwanted” migrants are excluded.

constructed in relation to illegality, often through arbitrary yet violent mechanisms. Those who
are deemed “undesirable” are criminalized, detained, incarcerated, and deported . Nandita Sharma calls these
categories ideological as both “legal” Canadians and “illegal” migrants “work within the same labour market and live within the same society” (“On Being Not Canadian” 62). Similarly, Himani

labels conceal the violences of capitalism and colonialism that constitute

Bannerji shows how these

these categories as well as subsequent inclusions/exclusions (Thinking Through). The third principle Walia highlights are
the racialized hierarchies of migrant and national identity (61). Racialized hierarchies, like Islamophobia and anti-Black racism as discussed above regulate and inform the institutions of

that the settler state maintains racial

citizenship and belonging. In constructing and regulating “criminality,” Rita K. Dhamoon argues

exclusion and Indigenous repression, and “re-entrenches norms of whiteness, nation

building, and citizenship through the law” (Identity/Difference Politics 68). The fourth principle, is state controlled and
structured processes of exploitation of labours of the migrants (67). Processes of capitalist accumulation and
neoliberalization lie at the heart of these exploitations. Border imperialism, thus, keeps the workforce “commodified

and exploitable, flexible and expendable” (71). Settler states rely on these
mechanisms of border imperialism to maintain their whiteness and use varying gradations of
racialized labour to continue the colonization of Indigenous nations and lands. Canada, like other settler and imperial states, maintains border imperialist practices and structures. Since the
inception of the Canadian settler state, the state has deployed many tactics to keep “undesirable”—often racialized peoples—away from the shore of its illegal borders. From settler practices like

the histories and legacies of

expropriating Indigenous lands, creating reserves, and regulating Indigenous identities, to anti-Black practices like

enslavement, and de-facto prohibition of Black and African immigration; to anti-Asian exclusions like the Chinese Head Tax, the
Continuous Journey Act, the expulsion of the Komagata Maru, and internment of the Japanese, to the ongoing racial exclusion of
migrants; Canada, historically and contemporarily, continues to reproduce the nation-state through normative whiteness and 89 Europeanness, often through violent exclusion of racialized

the Live-in Caregiver, Temporary Foreign Workers, and Seasonal

peoples. Contemporary immigration programs like

Agricultural Workers programs are all mechanisms to keep citizenship racially exclusive,
yet ensure a steady supply of inexpensive racialized labour. In addition, Canada is complicit in large-scale mass
displacements from the global South. For instance, more than 75 per cent of the world’s mining companies are headquartered in Canada, and all these companies, across Latin America, Asia and
Africa are implicated in gross human rights violations (“MiningWatch Canada”). Canada’s participation in imperial wars, like its deployment in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and Syria, has also
rendered many people displaced and dispossessed. Similarly, Canada’s international involvement through NAFTA, G-10, G-20, NATO, and the U.N. has been complicit in global displacements.
Canada has actively maintained imperialist borders and practices within and outside of Canada. The recent report, “Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration,” by the

justice group No One Is Illegal Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories highlights many
Vancouver based migrant

of these keys aspects of Canadian border imperialism. The report finds: Citizenship is becoming harder to get and easier to
lose. Permanent residency for refugees, skilled workers and family members is restricted, but the migrant worker program is exploding. Enforcement, in the form of detentions, deportations and
secret trials, is also on the rise. Pervasive sentiments such as “bogus refugees”, “terrorists”, and “foreigners stealing jobs” have justified the increasing exclusion and marginalization of migrants. If
migrants are allowed in, it is with temporary, conditional or precarious status. (“Never Home”) The report provides several instances of Canada’s exclusionary regime.25 Drawing from the report, I
provide below some of the more drastic and draconian aspects of Canada’s border 25 It must be noted that the report focuses on immigration changes under the Conservative Party’s Stephen
Harper regime (2006-2015). It is yet to be seen what changes may come under Liberal Party’s Trudeau regime. 90 imperialism. Not only did the percentage of immigrants who became Canadian
citizens drop drastically (from 70 per cent to 26 per cent between the years 2000-2008), Canada also took more temporary migrants than permanent migrants. As the requirements for becoming a
permanent citizen (including skilled worker class, family-class migrants and refugees) became more restrictive, the state created more avenues to exploit precarious migrant workers. Moreover, it
became much harder for migrants under temporary permits to gain permanent residency. Canadian media frequently labeled refugees as “bogus,” “queue jumpers,” “terrorists” and “human
smugglers” which resulted in a 30 per cent decrease in the number of accepted refugees. At the same time, Canada detained over 87,000 migrants and deported about 117,000 migrants.
Furthermore, refugees, permanent residents and undocumented migrants faced surveillance, security certificates and secret trials,26 incarceration, and deportation under the pretext of a threat to
security, particularly targeting Black peoples and Muslims in Canada.