Reclaiming Rights and Justice: Migrant Mobilization and Collective Resistance in Canada

Migrant rights and justice movements in Canada have arisen within an increasingly hostile political and discursive environment marked by restrictive immigration policies, precarious labor regimes, and the racialized marginalization of migrant communities. Yet these conditions have also generated various forms of collective resistance that contest the exclusionary boundaries of citizenship, labor rights, and national belonging. Drawing on a case study of a migrant domestic workers' organization and Migrant Spring rallies in Vancouver, this article examines how migrant workers and their allies organize under precarious conditions. The analysis shows that migrant activists transform structural marginalization into symbolic power through public protests, intersectional coalition-building, and media interventions. By challenging nationalist narratives that frame migrants as disposable labor or social burdens, these movements articulate a more inclusive and transformative vision of political belonging and social change.