Reunion of International Couples in Formal and Informal Relationships during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 epidemic has generated major social disruptions, including the implementation of border enforcement measures in many countries to contain international travel. As tourism has been the most frequent means for international couples to reunite, a minority of countries have implemented specific measures to allow foreign partners to cross the borders. The purpose of this article is to provide a global overview of the regulations of cross-border travel for couples respectively in formal and informal relationships. This research is based on data on travel guidelines from 175 countries and a typology that distinguishes countries that have not implemented travel restrictions (46%), countries that have enacted border enforcement regulations but with special measures to allow formal and informal couples (15%), countries with border enforcement and special measures for formal couples only (15%) and countries that have implemented a travel ban with no special measures (23%). Results show that the specific measures for formal and informal couples are implemented independently from the region but with much higher propensities in high-income countries. However, the administrative requirements, particularly for informal couples, vary greatly among the countries that allow couples to reunite. The article concludes that exemptions are key when analysing border closures and that specific measures could be applied more inclusively to allow informal couples to reunite.

Addressing the Impact of Border Enforcement Measures on the Self-Reported Health of Migrants Aiming to Enter Japan During the COVID-19 Epidemic.

Following the spread of COVID-19 in early 2020, Japan has implemented border enforcement measures to ban most foreigners, including tourists, workers and students from entering Japan for the time being, except for special humanitarian circumstances. For about a year, many migrants have been unable to enter Japan and had to postpone their plans. Using an online questionnaire (N=478), this study aimed to assess the impact of border enforcement measures on migrants’ health and wellbeing. Results indicate that border enforcement measures have generated insecurities, both from a financial and personal point of view. These have had strong negative effects on physical health and, to a greater extent, on sleep quality, level of stress and quality of life. The article demonstrates that insecurity is key for understanding Japanese border policies and, consequently, migrants’ health as it shapes a spectrum between the insiders and the outsiders that is determined by factors that take little account of individuals’ situation and that the state of exception reveals a gradient that is independent from the epidemic situation. It concludes with five points to be discussed further to protect migrants’ heath in case of travel ban: allow a fair treatment of migrants, developing international remote work possibilities, discussing the portability of the costs related to border enforcement measures, allow non-married couples to reunite and give a greater visibility to international migrants.

Cross-Border Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights

This research review discusses an important selection of research articles and papers on the cross-border enforcement of intellectual property rights. The selected texts examine the subject from a variety of important perspectives including economics, international agreements, patents, trade secrets, copyright, trademarks, recognition and enforcement. This review is an insightful and valuable resource for all those with an eye on the field.

DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY AND COERCIVELY ENFORCED BORDERS

Arash Abizadeh argues that all coercive enforcement of borders is democratically illegitimate, since foreigners do not participate in the creation of border laws. It is irrelevant whether the border laws are substantively just or unjust, whether the state enforcing them is affluent or poor, and whether the individual being coerced autonomously chooses to cross the border or is forced by desperate circumstances to do so. His argument involves (1) a foundational commitment to individual autonomy; (2) a normative premise that coercion requires democratic legitimation; (3) and an empirical premise that border enforcement laws subject all foreigners to state coercion. In this essay, I contest each of these components. I challenge the empirical premise through examples illustrating the empirical limits to state coercion over foreigners. I contest the normative premise by showing that state coercion requires democratic legitimation only for those involuntarily and indefinitely subject to it. Finally, I challenge the commitment to individual autonomy as foundational to political legitimacy by distinguishing political legitimacy from political authority. I conclude by demonstrating how my critique renders a more plausible account of the normative limits of border coercion, one that coheres more readily with stances advanced by Javier Hidalgo and Abizadeh himself.

The United States and the border: Mexican children’s drawings of family separation

In the current age of border talk, border enforcement, and of draconian policies that further separate and break up families, children who remain in the country of origin are rarely asked what they understand the border and the United States to be like. Media vehicles and academic papers have reported the brutal effects of family separation at the border for children and families. In order to further understand how young children make sense of their feelings of loss and separation psychologists and members of the American Academy of Pediatrics have collected drawings done by children to understand how trauma has manifested in the minds of children during detention and separation. However, another facet of children’s perceptions of the United States, migration and family separation also exist a little farther away from the physical border that divides the U.S. and Mexico. This paper, then, addresses the questions: How do Mexican children in Mexico make sense of their family separation through their drawings? How are children’s drawings and narratives describing how they see and understand the United States? In this paper, we analyze 50 drawings from children in Puebla, Mexico who have one or more parents living in the United States. Data for this paper stems from a 3 year, multi-sited ethnography that spanned New York City and several states in Mexico.

Unequal Neighbors

San Diego and Tijuana are the site of a national border enforcement spectacle, but they are also neighboring cities with deeply intertwined histories, cultures, and economies. In Unequal Neighbors: Place Stigma and the Making of a Local Border, Kristen Hill Maher and David Carruthers shift attention from the national border to a local one, examining the role of place stigma in reinforcing actual and imagined inequalities between these cities. Widespread “bordered imaginaries” in San Diego represent it as a place of economic vitality, safety, and order, while stigmatizing Tijuana as a zone of poverty, crime, and corruption. These dualisms misrepresent complex realities on the ground, but they also have real material effects: the vision of a local border benefits some actors in the region while undermining others. Based on a wide range of original empirical materials, the book examines how asymmetries between these cities have been produced and reinforced through stigmatizing representations of Tijuana in media, everyday talk, economic relations, and local tourism discourse and practices. However, both place stigma and borders are subject to contestation, and the study also examines “debordering” practices and counternarratives about Tijuana’s image. While the details of the study are particular to this corner of the world, the processes it documents offer a window into the making of unequal neighbors more broadly. The dynamics of this case present a framework for understanding how inequalities between places rest in part on cultural practices that produce asymmetric borders.