ABSTRACT
Asylum-seekers, refugees and foreign-born migrants have always been identified as a vulnerable population owing to long-standing structural barriers and inequalities. Nevertheless, their vulnerabilities have become more conspicuous and exacerbated by the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19). In this chapter, we argue that the plights of asylum-seekers, refugees and foreign-born migrants around the world, in the COVID-19 era, are underpinned by not-so-new but enforced and adapting pre-existing structural inequality drivers. Three distinct but interrelated lenses were used to discuss these enforced and adapting pre-existing structural drivers: COVID-19 nationalism, xenophobia and ‘social distancing’. First, we discuss how the inception of COVID-19 is accompanied by a global rise of nationalism, reigniting and reinforcing some of the anti-immigrant and isolationist policies and positions. Second, we illustrate that while xenophobia is endemic in many countries and societies, it can be exacerbated during times of public emergency such as is observed in the COVID-19 pandemic. Such stigma is associated with a lack of knowledge about how COVID-19 spreads, a need to blame someone, fears about disease and death, and gossip that spreads rumours and myths. Third, we argue that the application of social (physical) distancing approaches especially through enacted policies such as the quaranteam approach tends to enforce social classification, exclusion and consequently inequality. We conclude that long-standing and pre-existing structural drivers such as nationalism, xenophobia and refugee camping, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, have turned into COVID-19 nationalism and COVID-19-related xenophobia and stigma, fomenting discriminatory and segregation-laden policies and programmes.
