ABSTRACT
States have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in ways that have uniquely harmed migrants, including refugees – leaving them stranded at borders or pushed back to persecutors, subjected to violent racist or xenophobic attacks, fired from jobs, forced to work without personal protective equipment, denied access to healthcare and health information, and, in the case of migrant children, unable to go to school. This is the case even though States have agreed to a baseline of human rights guarantees protecting all migrants, including refugees. Major new challenges loom on the horizon, starting with restarting mobility in the post-pandemic and running through to climate change. Fortunately, there are major new tools in the governance toolbelt, including non-binding Compacts for Migration and on Refugees as well as progressive developments at the regional level. States may yet take them up and craft a new, rights-respecting architecture to facilitate migration in the post-pandemic. If they do, civil society will almost certainly lead the way, compelling States to recognize and protect the rights of all migrants, regardless of the reason for their movement across international borders.
