Undocumented migrants camp outside Immigration and Refugee Board

Undocumented migrants, refugees and community groups camped outside the Immigration and Refugee Board in Montreal this weekend.

They were demanding equal access to services like health care, housing, food, and child care.

Advocates are also calling for a comprehensive regularization program to allow migrants and refugees to work.

They want the Justin Trudeau government to regularize the status of undocumented migrants.

“Every deportation is an injustice and a missed opportunity to repair the harm the immigration system has caused to people’s lives,” said Nazila Bettache, a member of the Caring for Social Justice Collective. “We argue that immigration laws are unjust, they create precarity, they make people exploitable, they prevent people from accessing basic services.

“They’re really inhumane.”

Trudeau’s Liberals have made steps towards creating a regularization plan, which is expected to provide permanent residence to undocumented and temporary migrants.

The government’s plan would regularize roughly 500,000 people with non-status, advocates estimate.

RELATED: Groups want ‘truly inclusive’ program of regularization for undocumented migrants

“We definitely do need a program that includes everyone – not have caps or any kind of blockage or wall,” said Aboubacar Kane, a spokesperson for Solidarity Across Borders.

“Some people don’t even know that reality… High-ranking people in the government are not even aware of the relity of the migrants, or don’t want to see it. That’s one more reason for us to step out and tell people the reality.”