Refugee Hotels: The Discourse of Hospitality and the Rise of Immigration Detention in Canada

Abstract

While serving as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada between 2008 and 2013, Jason Kenney likened the detention facilities used to house an increasing number of asylum seekers and non-status migrants to hotels. And yet, when addressing the responsibilities of citizenship, he repeatedly argued that “Canada is not a hotel.” However contradictory, Kenney’s references to hotels and, implicitly, to the comforts and privileges they represent, draw on the idea of Canadian hospitality: the suggestion is that we detain asylum seekers in hotels or hotel-like conditions because we are an hospitable people but that our reputation for hospitality leaves us vulnerable to migrants who construe themselves as hotel guests with privileges rather than citizens with responsibilities. Paying particular attention to recent legislative reforms that will almost certainly result in the incarceration of more asylum seekers, this article asks how Canadian hospitality is defined and practiced today. More generally, it uses discourse analysis to explore the tension between the Canadian ideal of hospitality and the realities of an expanding immigration detention system.

The criminalization of migration, detention centres, and their portrayal in the media

“…When looking at the actual conditions of detainment, public officials insist that migrants are held in hotel-like conditions. With the passing of Bill C-31, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration insisted that immigration "holding" centres are not jails, they offer good living conditions (Dawson, 2014) and provide safety and security for the receiving country's citizens.…”

“…Meanwhile, according to an article referenced by Dawson (2014), immigration detention centres are run as medium-security prisons, complete with fences topped with razor wires, centrally controlled locked doors, security guards, and surveillance cameras. Furthermore, men and women are held separately with a special ward for children detained with their mothers.…”

“…In addition, Dawson (2014) credits the mismatch between "official" descriptions of detention centres with their reality to the desire for Canada to be viewed as hospitable and generous. In fact, she argues that this is why many officials refuse to acknowledge the placement of detained migrants in provincial prisons.…”

“I Thought We Had No Rights” – Challenges in Listening, Storytelling, and Representation of LGBT Refugees

“…In addition to these immigration constraints, funding for instate refugee health care and services was cut across Canada in 2012 (Marwah, 2014;Warmington & Lin, 2014). As a result, refugees are no longer able to access provincial medical service plans and must pay out-ofpocket for most of their medical services (Hari, 2014;Ratkovic, 2013;Dawson, 2014). 7 In the current conservative immigration climate, refugees and undocumented persons have emerged as powerful public advocates in Canada (Nyers, 2010).…”

The hotelisation of the housing crisis: Experiences of family homelessness in Dublin hotels

“…More than a year on from the horrific fire at Grenfell Tower in West London, 42 out of the 208 households displaced by the fire remained living in hotels as of June 2018 (BBC, ). Alongside this, the repurposing of hotels as de facto detention centres for asylum seekers has become increasingly common in countries such as the UK, Ireland, and Canada (Dawson, ; Gibson, ). The increasing appearance of hotels in housing crises has also been examined in popular culture, with the 2017 film The Florida Project exploring the lives of impoverished families living in a motel in the shadow of Disneyworld.…”