Immigration Policy in Times of Indigenous Reconciliation

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) sought to uncover and address these legacies, and the discovery of thousands of unmarked graves of Indigenous children at the sites of former UHVLGHQWLDO µVFKRROV¶ LQKDV OHIW WKHQDWLRQKRUULILHGDW WKHFXOWXUDODQGSK\VLFDOJHQRFLGH committed against Indigenous people (Hopper, 2021). [...] Since neither of us is Indigenous (Harald is an immigrant-settler from Germany and Rebecca is a third-generation white settler), we rely on written accounts from Indigenous and non- Indigenous scholars and commentators to assess what Indigenous ways of thinking about land and belonging in the context of immigration and settlement might be. [...] In a non-colonial context, immigrants would observe the laws and adjust to the ways, not of the colonizers, but of the Indigenous population (Tuck & Yang, 2012). [...] The evidence, however, is too thin to conclude that the relative lack of Indigenous voices and perspectives in immigration policy-making can be attributed to the irreconcilability of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, and Westphalian territorial statehood on which current immigration policy depends. [...] There are other more important struggles that currently require the attention of Indigenous communities ± such as the discovery of unmarked graves of Indigenous children, the murder and disappearance of Indigenous women, and the unsafe drinking water in many Indigenous communities.