Citizenship, Belonging, and Deportation

Abstract

Belonging and citizenship exist in tension when Canada seeks to deport people who are part of the community but not citizens. Building on critical citizenship studies, multi-scalar migration studies, and critical race theory, this paper explores how this tension between belonging and citizenship affects immigration law that governs deportation. Using the case study of a refugee who was apprehended by child protection services, spent more than a decade “in care”, and then faced deportation, the paper shows that deportation is not exclusively governed by the federal government. Actors at sub-national and supra-national scales, often informed by a critical analysis of race, can and do challenge the methodological nationalist assumption that the state is the natural and proper social or political form with which to make decisions about who may remain in Canada. The legal and political dynamics that emerge from this contest help construct immigration law. The resulting construction does not do away with the fundamental principle that non-citizens have only a qualified right to remain in Canada, but it does shape the application of this principle and raise important questions of how a right to remain should be qualified.

Keywords: immigration, citizenship, deportation, belonging, Canada, multi-scalar, methodological nationalism