Opportunistic oppression

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

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12593700
AutoresAndrea Birdsall (0000-0001-6420-9768, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK, autor correspondente), Rebecca Sanders (0000-0001-8018-6770, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA)
Ano2022
Volume27
Fascículo5
Páginas809-829
Data de publicação2022-02-28
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe International Journal of Human Rights (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1364-2987 • E-ISSN: 1744-053X
EditoraRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13642987.2022.2044314
OpenAlexW4214664786
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências 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