“For certain places, travel is the oxygen of the economy, their people cannot live off without that, they can’t depend on their own economy” said Krishnaraj Rao, freelance journalist from Mumbai, India.
By LESLIE VALLE
EL NUEVO SOL
By the 21st century we will already have gone through 5 pandemics, but COVID-19 is by far the deadliest. On Friday Nov. 20th, Ethnic Media Services hosted a digital conference about global migration plummeting and how it can affect the borders and economies restarting.
The Migration Policy Institute illustrated the challenges the governments everywhere have and how they should reimagine their borders, reopening their economy and societies after the devastation of the pandemic. This conference highlighted two journalists from India and Tijuana who spoke about the realities of being on the ground.
Demetrios (Demitri) Papademetriou, President Emeritus at the Migration Policy Institute and author of the report: “Managing the pandemic and its aftermath”, opened up the conference with a discussion about how one of the fastest ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to comply with all the orders that are being placed. With these actions being taken, we can rebuild the economy at a slow, but steady pace, and then, places can reopen borders.
Questions such as, “Do we open the economy first or attack the virus first?” and “What/who is an essential worker to know how they should be crossing the borders?” were raised. Papademetriou explained the importance of taking care of one another before attempting to send people back to work.
“It is essential that each one of us do our part and listen to the people that make the decisions,” said Papademetriou. “We have to invest in people who are in our country and our immigrants are the front-line workers and we all have to contribute to work together.”
Understanding that it is commitment to be able to slow the spread was highly talked about for any future plans of the borders opening again for all those non-essential workers. The numbers will continue to go up if people do not comply and understand why there are precautions to stop the spread.
Migration for many places has impacted the way the economy for several locations in which they depend on migrant workers as well as any tourists’ hot spots.
Vincente Calderón, editor at TijuanaPress.com News media services, spoke about how Mexico has faced repercussions in various ways due to their borders closing for those non-essential.
“The pandemic is a perfect excuse for extreme policies in the U.S.,” said Calderón. “Surveillance and control of the border have forced people to go through more dangerous routes to come to the U.S.”
The call to action for those at home is to remain staying at home and to continue social distancing. Those that need to migrate or seek asylum are now staying home with their families to avoid contracting COVID-19 and due to the high security at the borders making it difficult for them to even be able to seek what they need in the U.S.
Calderón then stated how it was expected that Joe Biden winning the presidency would lead to more humane migration policies. This is one of the reasons why there is urgency to prevent the spread of COVID-19 so those in need of migrating can continue to move.
“For certain places, travel is the oxygen of the economy, their people cannot live off without that, they can’t depend on their own economy” said Krishnaraj Rao, freelance investigative journalist from Mumbai, India.
There is angst all around the world for when things can continue to be the way we were, but things will not be the same if people can’t comply or find ways to make travel safe. There is a commitment to be able to slow the spread but numbers will continue to rise if there are no precautions.
It is essential that each one of us do our parts and listen to the people that make the decisions. In order for there to be a safe way to reopen the borders and rebuild our economies we must all work together as one to stop the spread of COVID-19 before we think about opening the borders for travel.
Tags: COVID-19 Demetrios Papademetriou India Krishnaraj Rao Managing the pandemic and its aftermath Migration Policy Institute Mumbai Tijuana TijuanaPress.com Vincente Calderón
