This article by the Toronto Star highlights the concerns of undocumented workers in regards to vaccine access. Many undocumented workers are afraid that by getting vaccinated they could end up losing their job or being deported. Getting vaccinated would involve providing personal information to public health officials and many workers fear it may be shared with immigration authorities, resulting in detention or removal from Canada.

According to the Toronto Star, anyone booking a vaccine appointment in Ontario is currently required to present an OHIP card or some other form of government-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s licence or passport. 

​“We need a clear plan, otherwise we’ll have a very large number of people who will not be vaccinated — especially in the GTA — and that’s a problem from a public health perspective,” said Denise Gastaldo, a Professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health who has researched undocumented workers in Ontario.

Our blog ECHOES has published a new original contribution by Rupaleem Bhuyan (Associate Professor, University of Toronto) and Margarita Pintín-Pérez (Senior Coordinator, Initiative to End Gender-Based Violence, OCASI) on "Dismantling the Syndemic of Structural Violence Facing Migrant Women: COVID-19, Gender-Based Violence, and Systemic Racism."

An event to formally launch the new Public Health & Migration area at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, will take place on March 2, from 12-1:30pm, in partnership with the Centre for Global Health at the School of Public Health and the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. Professor Steini Brown, Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, will open and two keynote speakers, Dr. Miriam Orcutt, Executive Director of Lancet Migration, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Global Health, University College, London, UK, and one of the Canadian Women in Global Health , and Dr. Heide Castañeda, Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Florida will follow.

The event is open to the public, and it is meant to draw in a wide audience, from clinicians, to health systems and services researchers, critical qualitative researchers, policy makers, advocates, and community members. The event is free of charge.

Additional information and a registration form can be found here.

This article published by Correo highlights how the documentary, Rebel, by Quebec-based film director and editor Pier-Philippe Chevigny, aims to defend immigrants who have crossed the Canada-United States border in Quebec on foot. 

"The documentary film Rebel (Rebelde), based on real events, addresses the drama of those who came to Canada in search of an improvement in their living conditions, fleeing the anti-immigrant policies of former President Donald Trump. Chevigny's documentary shows the reaction of the extreme right-wing in the province of Quebec to the arrival of immigrants." 

The film can be found here.

The pandemic has forced the closure of borders and worsened the lives of migrants and refugees throughout the world. Their health and jobs are more precarious, their journeys more perilous, and their resettlement often suspended.

Ryerson’s CERC in Migration and Integration and openDemocracy are teaming up for a live discussion to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global governance of migration and refugees.  The discussion will take place on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021, 12-1 PM, EST. 

Panelists include:
James Milner, Project Director, Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN), Carleton University
Marion Panizzon, Research Fellow, World Trade Institute, University of Bern
Antoine Pécoud, Professor of Sociology, University of Sorbonne Paris Nord
Chair: Younes Ahouga, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CERC in Migration and Integration, Ryerson University

​Register here.

According to this article by the Washington Post, President Trump set the annual national refugee cap at a historic low of 18,000 people. A federal appeals court unanimously decided to block President Trump’s policy allowing state and local government officials to refuse to resettle refugees in their jurisdictions.

"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the administration’s policy undermines the national resettlement program created four decades ago by Congress. Lawmakers deliberately required federal officials to “consult” with state and local leaders, but chose not to require their approval or consent to allow refugees within their borders, the court said." 

This article in the Guardian describes the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on California's farmworkers. The Latino workforce have contracted Covid-19 at nearly three times the rate of other residents. A study from the University of California, Berkeley, published Wednesday, is the first to explore the prevalence of infection rates among the workforce putting food on tables across America.
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"The study surveyed 1,091 farmworkers from mid-July through the end of November in the Salinas Valley, home to more than 50,000 agricultural workers. Key findings include that 13% of these workers tested over this five-month period tested positive. Comparatively, just 5% of all Californians tested came back positive."

The PEGASUS Institute is hosting a webinar on December 2 at 7 pm EST as part of their virtual event series. The webinar will focus on what a humanitarian response will look like in a post-COVID-19 world.

The event speaker will be Dr. Paul Spiegel, who is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health and Professor of Practise in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he lectures and undertakes research in humanitarian emergencies. Previously, Dr. Spiegel was the Deputy Director of the Division of Programme Support and Management at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland. 

Register here.