Dealing with the ‘Crimmigrant Other’ in the Face of a Global Public Health Threat: A Snapshot of Deportation during COVID-19 in Australia and New Zealand
Department of Pacific Affairs, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Academic Editor: Nigel Parton
Soc. Sci. 2021, 10(8), 278; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10080278
Received: 7 June 2021
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Revised: 1 July 2021
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Accepted: 19 July 2021
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Published: 21 July 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Crimmigration in the Age of COVID-19)
While global travel largely stopped and borders closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, states continued to deport individuals who had been sentenced for committing criminal offences. In Australia and New Zealand, questions over whether and how deportation of migrants during a global pandemic should occur were raised: weighing up arguments of legality, public health, and security. This left many migrants uncertain, isolated in immigration detention waiting for an unknown departure date. The decision was made to continue the deportation process for many, and in some cases breaches of public health restrictions were the basis for deportation. Once deported, mandatory quarantine on arrival under COVID-19 restrictions highlights and exacerbates the challenges that returning offenders normally face. These include extended detention periods; surveillance through detention and monitoring; and securitised discourse by the media and public creating ongoing stigma. This snapshot enables us to understand how states prioritised the removal of ‘the crimmigrant other’, a securitised threat, while facing the material threat of COVID-19.
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Keywords:
crimmigration; deportation; immigration detention; return; COVID-19; pandemic; securitisation; threat prioritisation; Australia; New Zealand
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
McNeill, H. Dealing with the ‘Crimmigrant Other’ in the Face of a Global Public Health Threat: A Snapshot of Deportation during COVID-19 in Australia and New Zealand. Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 278. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10080278
AMA Style
McNeill H. Dealing with the ‘Crimmigrant Other’ in the Face of a Global Public Health Threat: A Snapshot of Deportation during COVID-19 in Australia and New Zealand. Social Sciences. 2021; 10(8):278. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10080278
Chicago/Turabian StyleMcNeill, Henrietta. 2021. "Dealing with the ‘Crimmigrant Other’ in the Face of a Global Public Health Threat: A Snapshot of Deportation during COVID-19 in Australia and New Zealand" Social Sciences 10, no. 8: 278. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10080278
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