Opportunistic oppression

U.S. migration restrictions and public health policy during the Covid-19 pandemic

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12593700
AutoresAndrea Birdsall (0000-0001-6420-9768, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK, autor de correspondencia), Rebecca Sanders (0000-0001-8018-6770, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA)
Año2022
Volumen27
Número5
Páginas809-829
Fecha de publicación2022-02-28
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe International Journal of Human Rights (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1364-2987 • E-ISSN: 1744-053X
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13642987.2022.2044314
OpenAlexW4214664786
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas30

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world in Spring 2020, the Trump administration invoked war against the coronavirus to severely restrict admission of migrants and asylum seekers into the United States. At the same time, it declined to enact national measures to control viral community spread and sharply criticised public health policies. We analyse this notable inconsistency as a case of opportunistic oppression whereby policymakers take advantage of a crisis to pursue pre-existing, and often unrelated, policy preferences. We identify how the securitisation of health and the crisis-enabled politics of enmity allowed the Trump administration to cynically erode migrant human rights protections while simultaneously failing to contain the pandemic. Opportunistic oppression represents an attractive strategy for states facing real and imagined emergencies to pursue political agendas that are not necessarily part of a coherent and effective response to the crisis at hand

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Development economics · Economics · Human rights · Oppression · Pandemic · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public health · Refugee · Sociology · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Medicine · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Public Administration