In Seeking Asylum Under Title 42: Weaponizing Public Health Law to Expel Migrants at The Border, Alexis Fintland offers insight into the evolution of immigration law as it concerns epidemics and other public health emergencies. Fintland invokes this historical foundation, coupled with specific focus on the appellate decision in Huisha-Huisha v Mayorkas, to argue that Title 42 violates the non-refoulement principle and should therefore be struck down.

COVID-19’s catastrophic impact on the global workforce has amplified awareness around worker precarity and the lack of worker protections, despite these issues being present throughout United States labor history. While COVID-19’s immediate consequences have emphasized the need to increase protections for undocumented workers at the frontlines of the pandemic, policymakers have yet to deliver many long-term and multidimensional remedies. According to the Center for Migration Studies, 74% of undocumented workers are classified as essential workers. Nonetheless, throughout the pandemic, they have been excluded from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) and face limited access to healthcare. This thesis examines fifty interviews of undocumented Latin American migrants working across four different low-wage industries—construction, manufacturing, home care, and restaurants. These interviews span from January 2018 to June 2021, covering a key transitional point where nearly half of the interviews studied identify immediate impacts following the onset of COVID-19. This thesis argues that two elements of worker precarity—job stability and health/safety concerns— demonstrate a shift in worker mentality and an overall intensification of worker precarity throughout COVID-19. More specifically, this argument builds on four findings: the inability to find new jobs or return to previous jobs, the lack of income, heightened fear regarding the inability to access healthcare, and finding employers at fault for increased exposures to health risks. By calling attention to the growing inequities facing one of the most vulnerable working populations in the United States today, these interviews provide an empirical basis for future policymakers and researchers to understand how pandemics impact the workplace and low-wage work.

Sergio Garcia-Rios, a Professor of Government at Cornell University, finds himself temporarily terminated after COVID-19 delays his H1-B visa renewal.