Indigenous Anti/Deportation: Contesting Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Belonging in Canada and Australia

Abstract

This article focuses on attempts by settler colonial states to deport Indigenous non-citizens. The concept of “Indigenous anti/deportation” is introduced to capture both the inseparability of deportation from its contestation, as well as the unique stakes involved in contesting the imminent deportation of members of Indigenous communities. Comparing cases in Canada and Australia, Indigenous anti/deportation highlights fundamentally divergent claims of sovereignty, the assertion of Indigenous citizenship orders, and a transformation of how belonging is understood in contexts of settler colonial occupation. This article concludes by considering the implications of cases of Indigenous anti/deportation for future struggles for Indigenous sovereignty and for solidarity-building between migrants and Indigenous peoples.

Confined in the Binary: The Colonial (Re)production of (Trans)Gender Normativity in Cases of Trans Imprisonment

“…These two cases invite a discussion of how trans recognition in prisons exists in relationship to the anti-Indigeneity and anti-Blackness embedded in the penal system. While Beaumann's legal application asked the court to consider her vulnerable status as an incarcerated trans woman as reason to refuse her surrender, or at the very least to provide assurances of her placement in a women's prison upon extradition to the US, I argue that the heart of Beaumann's application was her inalienable right, as an Indigenous person, to stay on and in relationship to the land on which she calls home (Gardner, 2023). I analyze how Beaumann utilized the rights afforded to her under trans prison policies to resist colonial control, but how her concern for her safety was coopted by the state to naturalize the cisgenderist violence of incarceration and justify her surrender.…”

“…Extradition can be further problematized given that the settler state has always governed Indigenous mobility, under the pretext of "security" and "law and order," to assert sovereignty over stolen land (Crosby & Monaghan, 2018;Monaghan, 2013). In his discussion of Indigenous non-citizens' legal challenges to deportation, settler scholar Karl Gardner (2023) argues that mobility is just as important as, and inextricable from, "the freedom to stay" [emphasis in original] (p. 2). He conceptualizes Indigenous peoples' legal applications against deportation as expressions of sovereignty, as they fundamentally challenge settler authority and control while reasserting Indigenous citizenship orders and Indigenous notions of belonging to the land.…”

“…In Chapter 3, I laid out how institutions of settler law, policing, and prisons have worked in tandem to exert settler control over the land by disempowering Indigenous nations, fracturing collective power, and neutralizing Indigenous resistance (Crosby & Monaghan, 2018;Monchalin, 2016;Palmater, 2015Palmater, , 2020bRoss, 1998;Stark, 2016). I follow in the footsteps of Gardner's (2023) approach to consider how Beaumann, an Indigenous trans woman, is challenging her surrender from the hands of one settler state to another, and from one prison to the next, as a form of resistance to settler colonial violence. In this case, colonial violence takes the form of settler state punishment that obscures Indigenous sovereignty and contravenes Indigenous self-determination, and in this context, forced displacement across settler borders only further undermines Indigenous title to and relationships with the land (Gardner, 2023).…”

“…I follow in the footsteps of Gardner's (2023) approach to consider how Beaumann, an Indigenous trans woman, is challenging her surrender from the hands of one settler state to another, and from one prison to the next, as a form of resistance to settler colonial violence. In this case, colonial violence takes the form of settler state punishment that obscures Indigenous sovereignty and contravenes Indigenous self-determination, and in this context, forced displacement across settler borders only further undermines Indigenous title to and relationships with the land (Gardner, 2023).…”

“…95 The total of eight applications that she launched to challenge her extradition indicates Beaumann's investment in staying within the bounds of so-called Canada. Following in the footsteps of Gardner (2023), I approach Beaumann's legal challenge to the Minister's Surrender Order as, fundamentally, a demand to remain in relationship to the land on which she calls home. At the heart of Beaumann's application was her desire to remain in the territory on which she was born, connected to community, and which may allow her to connect with her Indigenous identity and birth family.…”