Voluntary and Forced Return Migration Under a Pandemic Crisis

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has an impact on migrants’ return desires and actual returns across the globe. Border closures in the face of pandemic lead to the panic mobility of those returning home. The ensuing lockdowns and economic difficulties restricted migrant workers’ access to income and protection, pushing them to return. The pandemic brought evident risks for the regular migrants’ access to healthcare, financial security, and social protection, forcing them to consider the return option too. For irregular migrants, the pandemic further increased the risk of forced returns, including detention, deportation, and pushbacks. For all migrants, decisions are marked by a deep dilemma between staying and returning. Meanwhile, receiving, sending, and transit countries, as well as international organisations are involved in return processes by providing logistics, on the one hand, and stigmatising returnees as carriers of virus, on the other. This study is based on desk research and analysis of the scholarly literature, reports, and grey literature from international organizations, civil society reports, scientific blogs, and media reports. An emphasis on returns provides us broader insights to evaluate changing characteristics of migration and mobility in ‘pandemic times’, the governance of returns, its consequences, and the rhetoric about returnees.

Negotiated and Involuntary Return: COVID-19 Pandemic and Return Migration of Bangladeshi Temporary Labour Migrant Men

“…Another theoretical framework, social network theory, emphasises on family and social networks which influence the decision of return. Bangladeshi migrants mobilize their networks-both material and non-material-when they caught up in the detention centres to return home; however, the broader aspect of involuntary return is more complex as it is associated with conflicting motivations, loss of income, and hence, the migrants left with no other options other than return (Mencutek, 2022). Hence, it is evident that all of the major theories provide insufficient arguments on return migration in relation to labour migration policies of the receiving countries.…”

Migratory Consequences of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Armenia

“…The pandemic forced thousands of migrants to return home (Mencutek, 2022). Crisisdriven repatriation creates additional social, and most importantly, economic burdens, dangerous tensions for the local economies and social-health systems that are already in dire straits.…”

Untitled

“…It is important to note that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused global economic unrest. Research shows that the global economic crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the Great Recession (Mencutek, 2022). The prices for crude oil have also decreased from USD $64 per barrel to a low USD $23 per barrel (Oxford Economics, 2021).…”

“…Hence, it is difficult to conclude that GCC and India fall under the centre or periphery. Although Galtung argues that countries at the centre are economically more robust than those at the periphery (Galtung, 1971), it is difficult to confirm this hypothesis in relation to the recent economic crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Mencutek, 2022).…”