The pandemic has demonstrated, once again, that temporary migrant workers are indispensable. Across Europe and Canada, farmers have warned that food supply will be affected if borders are closed to migrant agricultural workers. And both the US and UK have woken up to the fact that a large part of their healthcare workforce are migrants.
As a result, the term “essential workers” has suddenly become synonymous with those who are “foreign-born”, or of “migrant” origin, i.e. non-white and non-citizens. However, this sudden realisation that immigrants are essential to the survival of the West, and are now “heroes” (and heroines), has been nothing short of insulting, particularly to the migrant workers themselves. Those calling for a “renewed debate” on migration in light of COVID-19 overlook the migrants themselves, by touting only the benefits they provide to Northern economies.
This is also apparent in the temporary changes made to labour migration regimes in the North to account for the fallout of COVID-19. Measures put in place to provide labour migrants with greater access to rights and services for the course of the pandemic in Portugal and Italy for instance, are intended only to feed a current desperate need for labour shortage during the pandemic. And not necessarily for the sake of human rights, particularly given Europe’s consistent hardline anti-immigrant stance. The real test of the North’s commitment to migrant rights will come after the pandemic, not during.
