Grietas en las fronteras: insurgencias migrantes en Canadá, solidaridad, refugio, y protección de la vida en los tiempos del Covid-19

In the context of COVID-19, the Canadian state responded to the health emergency by implementing support policies for Canadian citizens and those legally permitted to reside in Canadian territory. These policies, which exclude migrant populations living in the country "illegally," have led to the strengthening and proliferation of both external and internal borders, excluding undocumented migrants and others with precarious immigration status. In response, undocumented populations and their allied political organizations have mobilized to provide emergency protection and shelter for those excluded during the pandemic, as well as to demand universal legal status for the "undocumented." As a result of these struggles, precarious migrant populations appear to be challenging and exposing contradictions within dominant regimes of meaning, surveillance, and border enforcement. Their collective insurgencies, as argued in this article, seem to be reinventing a new form of political action centered on the protection and qualitative extension of life. They are also rewriting new narratives about space, their belonging in Canadian territory, and the meaning of borders for them.
These reflections are based on ethnographic research on the mobilizations of undocumented migrants in Montreal, Canada, during the COVID-19 health emergency. The study involved documenting images and narratives from activists through in-depth interviews, visual records, and continuous engagement in the social struggles of undocumented migrants, which are analyzed in this article.