May 12, 2020

Dear John xxxxxx,

COVID-19 has chilled many forms of human movement, from air travel to temporary and permanent migration, refugee resettlement, and returns. More than 200 countries have imposed some form of restrictions on incoming visitors and migrants; some have even prevented their citizens from returning.

While the safe restart of mobility is a precondition for a return to economic and societal normalcy, restarting it will not be like flicking a switch. Indeed, countries will face a host of difficult choices in lifting coronavirus-linked restrictions and allowing travel to resume, as a new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) commentary explores. These decisions will hold key implications for people’s ability to move in the future, and could set in place mobility inequalities, encroachment on privacy, and more, explains Meghan Benton, who is director of research for MPI and MPI Europe.

Health screenings will be the cornerstone of managed mobility in the COVID-19 age, and if the freedom to travel is linked to health status, people could be sorted into classes of movers and non-movers based on things such as “immunity passports” or their access to immunization and the ability to prove it, for example.

Governments will also have to rethink their border and travel processes in key ways, with a new focus on digitization and automation. Greater use of facial recognition software, touchless border crossings, contactless baggage check, and even lie detectors that were being piloted pre-pandemic can be expected.

Navigating from this era of low mobility to a new reality presents endless choices and tradeoffs. “The biggest question of all, perhaps, is whether the world will return to pre-crisis mobility levels,” Benton asks.

I commend this very interesting commentary to your attention. You can read it at: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/rocky-road-mobile-world-after-covid-19.

And a reminder that you can find all of our COVID-19-related resources gathered here: www.migrationpolicy.org/coronavirus.

Hoping you are remaining safe and well,

Michelle Mittelstadt

Director of Communications and Public Affairs
Migration Policy Institute