Where it is safe enough to welcome tourists, it is safe enough for immigrants.

Every country in the world has closed or partly closed its borders since the pandemic began. In total, they have issued more than 65,000 restrictions on mobility. For some places, especially islands, border controls have bought valuable time to prepare for covid-19. But the costs of global immobility are immense (see article). Billions of cancelled journeys mean millions of jobs obliterated, lives blighted and dreams deferred. When bankers and tourists stopped flying to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, the migrants who made beds and stirred soup were laid off. Foreigners without jobs are required to leave the Gulf, but lots of them cannot, because so many flights have been grounded. Globally, tens of millions of migrants have been stranded, burning through the savings they had hoped would lift their families out of poverty and put their children through school. Some have ended up begging; and since that is a crime in the UAE, several have been arrested.

Migration policy is far from the top of any country’s agenda just now. And with the coronavirus still raging, a return to normality will be impossible for some time. But governments will sooner or later have to grapple with an important question. As they gradually and fitfully open again for tourists and business travelers, will they also welcome migrants?

There are emotive reasons why covid-19 might make countries less willing to accept foreigners even after a vaccine is discovered and the pandemic is suppressed. People are scared: not only of this pandemic but also of the next. Many associate foreigners with disease. (Dramatic news stories, such as a boat full of covid-infected migrants crossing the Mediterranean, can feed this impression.) Suspicion of foreigners is why people who look Chinese have been harassed in many countries, and people who look African have been harassed in China. It is why President Donald Trump has boasted about banning Chinese travelers (even as he downplayed masks), and why one of the South African government’s first actions to curb covid-19 was to build a fence on the border with Zimbabwe (though the virus was already spreading in South Africa).

In addition, covid-19 has caused mass unemployment. Many voters believe that migrants take jobs from the native-born, and so would keep curbs on immigration even after other travel restrictions are loosened. Mr Trump is one of many politicians who make this argument explicitly. His executive order in June suspending most kinds of work visa was aimed at “Aliens Who Present a Risk to the us Labour Market”.

Both these fears are electorally potent, but neither is well-founded. Tourists and business travelers vastly outnumber migrants. In Britain, for example, the total number of arrivals last year was 60 times more than the number of immigrants who showed up. When it is possible to open borders to short-term travelers, it should also be possible to open them for migrants. Unlike tourists, people who plan to stay for years will not object to a two-week quarantine on arrival. The precautions that work best—social distancing, contact-tracing, handwashing, and testing—pay no heed to nationality. Nor does the virus.

The idea that more migrants means fewer jobs for locals in the long run is an example of the fallacy that the economy has a fixed “lump of labour”. As well as spending their wages, which supports new jobs, migrants bring a greater diversity of skills to the workforce, allowing the labour market as a whole to operate more efficiently. In the short term, rich countries may not need as many hotel or airline workers, but policymakers can tailor admission criteria to make sure that those who come meet local needs and can support themselves.

This is the opposite of Mr Trump’s nail-the-doors-shut approach. He has locked out skilled workers, internal company transfers and even foreign students, if they have not yet arrived and their courses are online. This is a recipe for a poorer, more insular America, where domestic firms cannot hire the best, foreign investors cannot send in technicians to unblock bottlenecks and brainy youngsters opt to study and settle in Canada.

Alas, America is not the only place where the pandemic has spurred nativists to clamp down. Italy is alarmed at Africans crossing the Mediterranean. Malaysia has pushed boatloads of Rohingya refugees back into international waters. The army chief in the Maldives has called migrant workers a security threat, not least because some date locals. South Africa temporarily closed migrant-owned shops in townships, forcing customers to walk miles to distant grocery stores, thereby spreading the virus.

However, even as covid-19 has immobilised the world, it is making some people appreciate the benefits of mobility. Many voters in rich countries have noticed that doctors are often migrants: 53% in Australia, 29% in America. The same is true of nurses, care-home workers, and virus-busting mop-wielders. When people bang pots for health-care workers, they applaud a lot of foreigners.

Migrants are also over-represented among those who make it possible for others to work safely and productively at home, by harvesting and processing food, delivering parcels, and fixing software bugs. They turbocharge innovation, too. Some 40% of medical and life scientists in America are foreign-born. Vaccine research depends on large teams of talents from all around the world. Half the big American tech firms were founded by a first- or second-generation immigrant. If the founder of Zoom had never left China, locked-down professionals might not even know what their colleagues’ bookshelves look like.

Open the windows, open the doors

Some countries may end up more open after the pandemic than they were before. Japan is allowing foreign “trainees”, as it calls migrant workers, to switch jobs. Britain will be less open to migrants from the EU, because of Brexit, but just offered residency to up to 3m Hong Kongers without a perceptible backlash at home (see article).

When the coronavirus is vanquished, migration will still be what it was before: a powerful tool that can lift the poor, rejuvenate rich countries and spread new ideas around the world. A pandemic is no reason to abandon it.

SolidarityNow continues to focus its actions on integration programs

Since 2016, SolidarityNow has been one of the key partners of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Greece. The partnership concerned the effective implementation of the *ESTIA program, with the aim of providing housing and a range of supporting services to asylum seekers in Attica, in the wider area of Thessaloniki and Ioannina in Northern Greece.

Since April 2016 and up to today, the organization has managed to support and empower more than 10,000 asylum seekers and refugees through the program. Many of the beneficiaries belonged to vulnerable social groups such as single-parent families, people with serious medical problems, people with disabilities, victims of torture, etc. During the 5 years of implementation, the program included different types of structures such as: housing in independent apartments, buildings, but also hostels and a specialized program for LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees. It is worth to be mentioned that through the ESTIA program, SolidarityNow has also supported more than 3,500 children.

The organization’s accommodation program has achieved its goal: to provide and ensure vulnerable applicants for international protection and refugees, not only decent living conditions in a safe environment but also access to high quality supporting services (interpretation, escorts to health and medical structures, support from experienced groups of social workers, psychologists and lawyers, educational activities, enrollment of children in public schools, etc.). The long-standing and long-term goal of Solidarity Now was – and remains – to ensure the people’s smooth integration and peaceful coexistence into the Greek society.

At the same time, in a period of severe economic recession, SolidarityNow along with other organizations and the authorities, taking into account the need to maintain social stability and cohesion and strengthen the acceptance and integration of the population, supported the local economy, mainly through renting apartments in urban centers. Also, many of the program’s beneficiaries were supported by our teams and made the next step; they learned Greek and managed to find a job, thus support their families, and integrate into Greek society and reality.

The recent undertaking of the program titled ESTIA II, now focused merely on housing, by the government and the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, is the reasonable next step, for the overall management of the refugee issue in the country. We, at SolidarityNow, express our willingness to support the program’s smooth transition processes in order to ensure, in every possible way, the unimpeded support of asylum seekers and refugees. At the same time, we express our concern for the maintenance of the services’ quality in the context of the new program based on its new terms.

At SolidarityNow, our core actions include the continuous efforts to improve, through our programs, the living conditions of the people we support. Facing the new challenges regarding refugees and migrants in the country, we continue our work focusing on the integration of vulnerable population groups: with training programs – language support -, supporting services aimed at connecting beneficiaries with the labor market, social interventions at neighborhoods related to the needs of the local community and the economy, concern and care of unaccompanied children. Programs that cover the entire arc that begins with addressing basic needs, to creating opportunities for social inclusion, building on people’s self-reliance and empowerment.

* ESTIA, the Emergency Support to Integration and Accommodation program, is implemented by UNHCR and funded by the Asylum, Migration, and Integration Fund of the European Union.

A new serious game application launches in time for World Refugee Day June 20, 2020

To mark World Refugee Day on June 20, 2020, a new application called WORKEEN launches to help migrants, asylum seekers and refugees gain access to the job market.

WORKEEN is a serious game application, created by a team of political scientists, sociologists, economists and software engineers based in seven European countries and in Canada, to provide practical guidance and hands-on soft-skills training for anyone entering the labour market for the first time. The application draws from the research conducted in the Horizon 2020 research project SIRIUS “Skills and Integration of Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Applicants in European Labour Markets” and is one of the first of its kind to offer interactive “training” that helps recently arrived migrant job seekers and EU citizens that are new entrants to the labour market, effectively obtain and start a job in their new country.

The application guides job seekers through the two stages of job search and workplace integration. It provides extensive information on how to adjust to new or unknown work and social environments and provides interactive gaming scenarios to help users develop the soft skills they need to be successful.

Stage 1) What you need to know and do to obtain a job offer

The first stage of WORKEEN helps the migrant, asylum seeker or the refugee follow all the necessary steps to secure an offer of employment. The application provides a checklist to help the user identify documentation they will need in their job search, such as their identity documents, language certificates, evidence of previous employment or education, and work permits. The user is then guided on how to present their skills and past experience through the creation of an online profile that is relevant to the new work and social environment they are entering.  WORKEEN leads users through the final stage of a job search, providing information on how to contact a placement agency, write a cover letter and curriculum vitae and prepare for a job interview.

Stage 2) How to succeed in your new role

Once the first stage is successfully completed, the job seeker can explore WORKEEN’s interactive activities to help them prepare to enter a new workplace. Stage 2 is designed to help new employees become familiar with their new country or new position so they may avoid unpleasant tensions. It also makes them aware of their rights and prepares them to address potential exploitation and abuse. Serious games like WORKEEN give participants training on such matters as etiquette at the workplace, gender issues, everyday habits, communication issues, dress code, as well as labour standards and regulations. WORKEEN creates scenarios to help users navigate challenging situations from simple miscommunication on everyday encounters with co-workers or supervisors to facing bullying or abusive behaviour in the workplace or rights’ violations.

The WORKEEN application is available on Google Play store for Android devices, free of charge. It can be used in individual or collective training sessions organised by employment agencies, migrant organisations and other stakeholders. Naturally, it can be directly downloaded by migrants, refugees and asylum seekers or anyone wanting to develop their soft skills to gain employment. The application is available in English, Arabic, Farsi and in six different European languages (Czech, Danish, Finnish, French, Greek and Italian).

**SIRIUS is an EU founded project which was launched in January 2018 and will run for three years. It is consisted of 11 partners from 7 countries and it builds on a multi-dimensional conceptual framework in which host country or political-institutional, societal and individual-related conditions function either as enablers or as barriers to migrants’, refugees’ and asylum seekers’ integration via the labor market.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Ελληνικά.