ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the analytic of irregular citizenship that enables us to perceive some contemporary enactments of ‘no borders’ for how they open new worlds and new modes of being political. It investigates how the politics of ‘no borders’ is being enacted in the context of the Sanctuary City project in Toronto, Canada. The chapter argues that what is at stake politically here is the contestation of temporal borders that seek to restrict both circulation and movement within social space and the self-determination of subjects and communities – i.e. the unfolding of life itself. Carens’ proposal allows for ‘no borders’ in the form of regularization based on time. One major issue is the degree to which a sanctuary city retains the problematic distinction between different classes of migrants: asylum-seekers, refugees, migrant workers, undocumented migrants, and so on.
