SOC 4005 / SOC 5005 - Refugees and Humanitarianism - Warren

“During a global pandemic, when every government is focused on halting the spread of a virus that can kill, how can Canadian workers be treated with such disregard? Well, that's the crux of the problem--they're not Canadian. Nearly 60,000 farm workers in this country are largely from Mexico and the Caribbean, here to do a job Canadians no longer want to do--grow the food that sustains us.”

Juan Carlos Ruiz, a Mexican pastor in Brooklyn, does everything from human-rights advocacy to grocery delivery.

During the pandemic, undocumented New Yorkers turn to a pastor for help.

“As the report notes, though, the pandemic may also have positive effects in the longer term. The crisis has pushed many senders towards digital providers, which could mean cheaper cash transfers.”

“Last year saw the lowest number of refugees resettled globally in nearly two decades, as refugees fleeing war and persecution continue to urgently need a safe place to go but with fewer countries willing to make space during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to new figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, only 22,770 refugees were resettled globally by the agency, while it identified 1.44 million refugees in need of urgent protection.”

“Last year saw the lowest number of refugees resettled globally in nearly two decades, as refugees fleeing war and persecution continue to urgently need a safe place to go but with fewer countries willing to make space during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to new figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, only 22,770 refugees were resettled globally by the agency, while it identified 1.44 million refugees in need of urgent protection.”

“The United Nations World Food Programme warns that by the end of 2020, COVID-19 could push the number of people suffering from acute hunger to more than a quarter of a billion--many of them in Africa. The World Bank predicts the pandemic will drive Africa into its first recession in 25 years and perhaps also spark a food security crisis on the continent because of declines in food imports, higher transaction costs, and reduced domestic demand.”

“The people who come from other countries to work on Canada’s farms have never had it particularly easy—but the pandemic has added a sharp edge to the stressful conditions under which they work, says the Rev. Antonio Illas, the diocese of Niagara’s missioner to migrant farmworkers.”

“When COVID-19 spread around the world, migrant workers were among those hardest hit. Many male workers in the Gulf region and Southeast Asia were living in packed dormitory accommodations, including mega-dormitories housing thousands of men. Once one worker was infected, the disease spread rapidly among their colleagues and they were then perceived as a threat to the local population in their countries of employment.”

“Across the country, undocumented workers are taking collective action to create their own safety nets. In Western New York, the group Alianza Agricola has established an emergency fund for COVID-19. In North Carolina, Siembra NC is holding fundraisers to assist undocumented immigrants in a bind. But it's a difficult gap to fill. Undocumented immigrants do not qualify for federal rescue relief funds or state unemployment benefits, even though they have been paying taxes for years.”

“Across the country, undocumented workers are taking collective action to create their own safety nets. In Western New York, the group Alianza Agricola has established an emergency fund for COVID-19. In North Carolina, Siembra NC is holding fundraisers to assist undocumented immigrants in a bind. But it's a difficult gap to fill. Undocumented immigrants do not qualify for federal rescue relief funds or state unemployment benefits, even though they have been paying taxes for years.”

“The Covid-19 crisis reveals the full force of unjust structures that place refugees and very poor people at great risk. It also shows the dangers of political discourse that emphasizes national interests to the exclusion of the world's most vulnerable people. International responses to the Covid-19 crisis should prioritize greater social inclusion of very poor people and those who have been forcibly displaced.”

“Migration policy is far from the top of any country's agenda just now. And with the coronavirus still raging, a return to normality will be impossible for some time. But governments will sooner or later have to grapple with an important question. As they gradually and fitfully open up again for tourists and business travellers, will they also welcome migrants?”

The message advocates have been pushing for years is finally gaining traction: migrant work under the TFWP is not safe.

“... the Secretary-General of the United Nations said that in the context of the COVID-19 emergency, societies have become aware of how much they depend on migrants, ‘who too often are invisible in our communities’."

“65 percent of workers in the GTA - over two million people - are in sectors that can remain open with some form of in-person staffing under current lockdown guidelines, a Star analysis has found. These essential workers are more likely to be lower-wage and immigrants to Canada, and less likely to be unionized than those who can work from home.”

“Behind closed doors, the Office of the Chief Coroner is examining the deaths of migrant workers who contracted COVID-19 on Ontario farms last spring in a confidential review that is proceeding without key representatives of temporary foreign workers. … The secrecy of the review raises questions about how rigorous it will be …”

“The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa, Rula Amin, described the refugee situation as a "poverty pandemic", with poor access to basic services, and restricted avenues for physical distancing.”

“Ensuring fair distribution of Covid-19 vaccines has been a priority for the global community during the pandemic, but rich countries have nonetheless led the way in inoculations, with new data suggesting only 0.1 per cent of doses have been administered in the world's 50 poorest nations. … But arguably farther away from the spotlight is how to ensure that vaccinations are equitable within individual countries. UN agencies have been very clear that migrants and refugees, regardless of their legal status, must be included in any vaccination programmes – not only from an equity standpoint, but also to limit the spread of the virus.”

“The genesis and evolution of the COVID-19-led migrant crisis in India, along with the institutional responses, is discussed. The focus is on the shortcomings of the response, especially taking into consideration the curtailment of human mobility, which pushed migrants into enormous physical, psychological, and economic vulnerability, and the short-, medium-, and long-term measures provided by the government in order to alleviate them. Alternate policy measures to ensure migrant welfare in the immediate future are suggested.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on Jordan's most vulnerable population during 2020 and has exposed them to new challenges, according to a recent report by a global relief agency. Titled, ‘10 Years into Exile: A Shock on Top of a Crisis’, the assessment is the ninth in a research series which CARE Jordan uses to analyse and track the needs, vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms of refugees and host communities in Jordan.”

“Migrating is a right. It doesn't matter who you are or where you are. It is also a right to stay; that your own country can ensure that you are safe, and if someone threatens or hurts you, it is a right that you can access justice; it is a right to be able to work, without extortion or threats; it is a right to have efficient health services, especially now that we are going through a pandemic.”

“Migrant workers returning to native places in COVID-19 times were the host for urban to rural transmission of cases as the migrant-receiving states witnessed over five times increase in the number of districts having a more significant concentration of COVID-19 cases from 1 May to 31 May 2020. There is an urgent need for the skill mapping of the migrant workforce and creating social security schemes to protect them under any socio-economic or health emergency.”

“A government ‘amnesty’ for undocumented migrants to encourage them to come forward for Covid vaccines will not be enough, minsters have been warned. Over 140 charities, faith groups, local authorities and medical organisations have written to the government urging more action to ensure an estimated 1.3 million people feel safe coming forward. Downing Street on Monday said there would be no checks on immigration status at vaccine centres and that ‘those who are here illegally can come forward to receive a vaccine’. “

“Every weekend the removal vans come to a leafy suburb of Dubai. Expatriates are packing up. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), of which Dubai is part, will lose 10% of its population this year, reckons Nasser al-Shaikh, an ex-finance minister. COVID-19 has devastated the Gulf's trade-and-transport hub. Emirates, Dubai's airline, says it may cut 30% of its roughly 100,000 staff. … Nearly all of those losing their jobs in the UAE are migrants, who are almost 90% of the population. Without a job, they have to leave the country. This is irksome enough if they are bankers or architects. For those who used to wash dishes in hotels or lay bricks on building sites that are now shuttered, it can be a nightmare. Some 500,000 Indians in the UAE have registered to be evacuated; less than half have been.”

“As the coronavirus spread throughout Chicago in mid-March, Catholic Charities' Legal Assistance Program started seeing an increase in calls from non-English-speakers. One, a client who is an undocumented immigrant, had lost her job due to the pandemic. Her landlord was threatening to evict her and her children if she couldn't pay her rent. … Such threats were already common among the United States' approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants, but the coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated fear among undocumented people and individuals seeking asylum here.”

“Immigrants face double risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. While they are almost always part of the most vulnerable populations, living in conditions more precarious than non-migrants, they are also a very important part of workers considered essential in host countries. Thus, without being able to stop during the pandemic—whether they are frontline workers or their work cannot be done remotely—migrants have been disproportionately affected by the disease, which has already left more than 64 million people.”

Detained men and women held at a facility in Georgia are trying desperately to raise the alarm.

Detained illegal immigrants protest their detention at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As COVID-19 ravages the globe, more and more governments are urging their citizens to stay at home. Such advice is impossible to follow for those who have been driven from theirs. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are more than 70m forcibly displaced people worldwide, including almost 30m refugees and more than 40m who have fled to other parts of their own country. The refugee camps and informal settlements where many now dwell were ill-equipped to meet their basic needs, even before the pandemic broke out. Already Greece has quarantined two refugee camps--one on the island of Euboea and one near Athens--after residents tested positive for the virus. If, or more likely when, it arrives in other camps, it will find the environment far more hospitable than the refugees themselves did.”

“Millions of young people -- both men and women -- from different low income countries in Asia and Africa have over the past decade taken the courageous step of leaving their homes and seeking employment abroad. A high percentage of these economic migrants have used their overseas employment opportunity to save part of their salary or earning abroad and send it as remittance back home to facilitate socio-economic welfare of their families. Many among them, having arrived in their destinations, have however discovered that living abroad, particularly in the Middle East or in some countries in South-east Asia and the Far East, is not as easy as had been anticipated. They face invisible challenges- many difficult to overcome.”