ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Canada has treated accompanying family members of migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic taking, examining both quantitative data and qualitative counternarratives. In particular, it employs as a case study the experiences of the spouses of study- and work-permit applicants who were largely stuck abroad, neither able to travel to Canada nor apply for permanent residency, during much of the pandemic. I argue that Canada’s pandemic border policies reinforce a restrictive “colour line” on family-based migrants from the Global South by negatively affecting their mental health and by deepening systemic racism. This notwithstanding, both legal and policy structures in Canada have impeded family-based migrants from challenging these border policies by failing to provide accessible legal remedies and policy lenses that take into account racism and mental health. Leaning on the lived experiences of three family-based migrants during the pandemic, I show how social science evidence, and deconstructing the pandemic through both data and lived experience, is important in drawing out the adverse, inequitable impact of pandemic border policies.
