March 26, 2020

Dear John,

The U.S. government has taken sweeping, in some cases unprecedented, measures to restrict mobility across international borders to fight a global pandemic that knows no geographic boundaries. The COVID-19 virus has brought into sharp focus the intersection of U.S. immigration and public health policy, as well as the impacts of the outbreak and related economic fallout that are challenging the U.S. immigrant population in sometimes unique ways.

In a new article, the Migration Policy Institute’s Muzaffar Chishti and Sarah Pierce analyze the Trump administration’s introduction of some of the most stringent immigration restrictions in modern times with respect to travel, border closures, refugee resettlement and asylum, and more. The article in MPI’s online journal, the Migration Information Source, also examines the effects of these policies on public health and other aspects of life, the status of enforcement and detention as well as immigration service operations, and measures included—or not—in the estimated $2 trillion relief package that just passed the Senate and is awaiting House consideration.

“There are no parallels to the multidimensional challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented the United States and the world in this globalized and economically interdependent era in which we live,” Chishti and Pierce write.

This article is among the research, analysis, and commentary MPI is doing on the pandemic, with webinars, fact sheets, and more to come in the days ahead, so please stay tuned.

You can find all of our work here: www.migrationpolicy.org/coronavirus.

Stay safe out there!

Michelle Mittelstadt

Director of Communications and Public Affairs
Migration Policy Institute