Post last updated April 24, 2020

The United States government has taken extreme actions to limit travel to the United States during the COVID-19 outbreak. Currently, the government has suspended nearly all legal immigration and travel to the United States. It has reduced interior immigration enforcement, deportation court cases, and stopped deportations to three countries.

Below is a list of the dates of each action that it has taken, details of the action, and their effective dates. While the government is correct to reduce unnecessary travel at this time, it should not completely close off immigration because many immigrants are serving important roles in combating this epidemic. This post concludes with proposed actions that the government is considering.

COVID-19 Immigration Actions

1. 1/29/2020, State Department Repatriation Efforts—State Department Statement
   • State Department starts coordinating the repatriation of Americans. It has coordinated the repatriation of 62,985 Americans from 106 countries from January 29, 2020 to April 15, 2020
   • Effective January 29, 2020
2. 1/31/20, China ban—Presidential proclamation 9984
   • Bans entry of all noncitizens who were in China in the last 14 days, except for LPRs, spouses of LPRs or U.S. citizens, unmarried children under 21, siblings under 21 of U.S. citizens or LPRs under 21, child of U.S. citizens or LPRs, crewmembers, government officials, or those exempted by the Secretary of State or DHS.
   • Requires quarantining of people who may have been exposed to the virus.
   • Effective February 2, 2020 at 5pm.
3. 1/31/20, China U.S. citizen quarantine—DHS and HHS joint announcement
   • Mandatory quarantine for any U.S. citizen who was in Hubei, China in the prior 14 days.
   • Screening and self-quarantine for any U.S. citizen who was in China in the prior 14 days.
   • Effective February 2, 2020.
4. 1/31/20, China flight rules—federal register notice
   • Requires flights carrying anyone who had been in China in the last 14 days to land at one of eight airports for screening.
   • Effective February 2, 2020.
5. 2/1/20, China visa suspension—embassy notice
   • State Department announces a total closure in China until February 7, 2020.
   • Effective February 3, 2020.
6. 2/2/20, Updated China flight rules—federal register notice
   • Requires flights carrying anyone who had been in China in the last 14 days to land at one of 11 airports for screening.
   • Effective February 2, 2020.
7. 2/10/20, China visa suspension 2.0—embassy notice
   • State Department announces suspension of regular visa processing in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenyang.
   • Effective February 10, 2020.
8. 2/29/20, Iran ban—Presidential proclamation 9992
   • Bans entry of all noncitizens who were in Iran in the last 14 days, except for LPRs, spouses of LPRs or U.S. citizens, unmarried children under 21, siblings under 21 of U.S. citizens or LPRs under 21, child of U.S. citizens or LPRs, crewmembers, government officials, or those exempted by the Secretary of State or DHS.
   • Requires quarantining of people who may have been exposed to the virus.
   • Effective March 2, 2020.
9. 3/3/20, Seattle court closure—EOIR announcement
   • The Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) closes Seattle immigration court after an employee tested positive for COVID-19.
   • Effective March 2, 2020.
10. 3/4/20, Iran flight rules—federal register notice
    • Requires flights carrying anyone who had been in Iran in the last 14 days to land at one of 11 airports for screening.
    • Effective: Retroactive March 2, 2020.
11. 3/9/20, Student visa flexible study—ICE guidance
    • ICE announces that it “intends to be flexible with temporary adaptations” to COVID-19 for students and OPT workers, including telework or remote classrooms.
    • Effective March 9, 2020.
12. 3/10/20, UAC placement state restrictions—ORR internal decision
    • The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) stops placing unaccompanied alien children (UACs) in homes or shelters in California or Washington.
    • Effective March 10, 2020.
13. 3/11/20, Europe ban—Presidential Proclamation 9993
    • Bans entry of all noncitizens who were in the European Schengen Area in the last 14 days, except for LPRs, spouses of LPRs or U.S. citizens, unmarried children under 21, siblings under 21 of U.S. citizens or LPRs under 21, child of U.S. citizens or LPRs, crewmembers, government officials, or those exempted by State Department or DHS.
    • Requires quarantining of people who may have been exposed to the virus.
    • Effective March 14, 2020.
14. 3/12/20, Italy visa suspension—embassy notice
    • State Department suspends regular visa processing at the U.S. Embassy in Rome and Consulates General Milan, Naples, and Florence.
    • Effective March 12, 2020.
15. 3/13/20, Public charge rule limited—USCIS notice
    • USCIS announces it “will neither consider testing, treatment, nor preventative care (including vaccines, if a vaccine becomes available) related to COVID-19 as part of a public charge inadmissibility determination… even if such treatment is provided or paid for by one or more public benefits.”
    • Effective March 13, 2020 or earlier
16. 3/14/20, Britain and Ireland ban—Presidential Proclamation 9994
    • Bans entry of all noncitizens who were in Britain or Ireland in the last 14 days, except for LPRs, spouses of LPRs or U.S. citizens, unmarried children under 21, siblings under 21 of U.S. citizens or LPRs under 21, child of U.S. citizens or LPRs, crewmembers, government officials, or those exempted by State Department or DHS.
    • Requires quarantining of people who may have been exposed to the virus.
    • Effective March 17, 2020.
17. 3/15/20, Sick removals suspended—ICE statement
    • ICE states it would stop deportations of anyone with a 100.4‑degree fever.
    • Effective March 15, 2020 or earlier.
18. 3/16/20, Britain and Ireland flight rules—federal register notice
    • Requires flights carrying anyone who had been in Britain and Ireland in the last 14 days to land at one of 13 airports for screening.
    • Effective March 16, 2020.
19. 3/17/20, ICE in-person check-ins cancelled—ICE letter to Congress
    • ICE suspends in-person check-ins by immigrants considered a “low priority” for removal and ICE would give newly released immigrants at the border 60 days to check-in rather than 30.
    • Effective March 17, 2020.
20. 3/17/2020, Guatemala suspends asylum deal—Guatemala government notice
    • Guatemala refuses to continue to accept asylum seekers from other countries.
    • Effective March 17, 2020.
21. 3/17/20, Europe flight rules—federal register notice
    • Requires flights carrying anyone who had been in the European Schengen Area in the last 14 days to land at one of 13 airports for screening.
    • Effective March 13, 2020.
22. 3/17/20, Immigration court closures—EOIR statement
    • The Executive Office of Immigration Review postpones all hearings for non-detained immigrants and closed 10 additional courts.
    • Effective March 18, 2020.
23. 3/17/20, USCIS in-person interviews suspended—USCIS statement
    • U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services suspends routine in-person services until at least April 1.
    • Effective March 18, 2020.
24. 3/18/20, Worldwide visa suspension—State Department notice
    • State Department cancels routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments, effectively prohibiting new authorizations to travel to the United States. Only emergency appointments will be allowed.
    • Effective March 20, 2020.
25. 3/18/20, ICE enforcement restrictions—ICE statement
    • ICE suspends arrests of those who are not “public safety risks or individual subject to mandatory detention based on criminal grounds.” Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli has clarified that some non-priority arrests will still occur.
    • Effective March 18, 2020.
26. 3/18/20, ICE removals limited—ICE statement
    • ICE told CNN that it suspends removal flights to Italy, China, and South Korea indefinitely.
    • Effective March 18, 2020 or earlier
27. 3/18/20, CBP Trusted Traveler closures—CBP statement
    • CBP closes operations at Trusted Traveler Program enrollment centers nationwide until at least May 1, 2020.
    • Effective March 19, 2020.
28. 3/18/20, Refugee entry suspension—State Department announcement
    • All refugee resettlement pauses until at least April 6, 2020.
    • Effective March 19, 2020.
29. 3/19/20, H‑2 visas processed—State Department Statements
    • The State Department resumed processing H‑2A and H‑2B visas, despite its suspension of most visa processing. It could be limited to returning workers who can have a visa interview waived.
    • Effective March 19, 2020 or earlier.
30. 3/20/20, Voluntary returns of Mexicans—Statements
    • Border Patrol stops expedited removals of Mexicans—which trigger a permanent bar on reentry—and allows them to take voluntary removal to avoid any time in detention.
    • Effective March 20, 2020 or earlier.
31. 3/20/20, Canada tourist ban—DHS statement
    • Bars all Canadian visa waiver program travelers for 30 days.
    • Effective March 21, 2020
32. 3/20/20, Mexico tourist ban—DHS statement
    • Bars all Mexican tourists bars travelers for 30 days
    • Effective March 21, 2020
33. 3/20/2020, Premium Processing For Worker Petitions Suspended—USCIS Statement
    • USCIS stops granting premium (expedited) processing on I‑140 permanent or I‑129 temporary petitions by employers for foreign workers.
    • Effective March 20, 2020
34. 3/20/20, Asylum seeker ban—DHS statement
    • Removes without any process anyone without documents detained along the southwest border to Mexico or to their home country.
    • Effective March 21, 2020.
35. 3/20/2020, Limited U.S. Passport Processing—State Department Statement
    • State Department only offers “in-person service at our agencies or centers for customers with a qualified life-or-death emergency”
    • Effective March 20, 2020
36. 3/20/20, I‑9 In-Person Document Check Suspension—ICE statement
    • Waives the requirement to inspect employment ID documents in-person for 60 days but only for remote workers
    • Effective March 20, 2020
37. 3/23/20, Varick Immigration Court Temporarily Closed—EOIR statement
    • Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) closes the Varick Street New York City immigration court after a case of COVID-19.
    • Effective March 24, 2020
38. 3/23/20, MPP Hearings Postponed—EOIR/DHS Statement
    • The Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) postpones all hearings for immigrants returned to Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP).
    • Effective date March 23, 2020
39. 3/24/20, Varick Immigration Court Reopened—Statement
    • Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) reopens the Varick Street New York City immigration court after a case of COVID-19 on March 23.
    • Effective March 25, 2020
40. 3/24/20, Electronic Labor Certification Approvals—DOL Statement
    • The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it would issue PERM labor certification documents electronically through June 30.
    • Effective March 25, 2020
41. 3/25/20, Elizabeth Immigration Court Closed—EOIR Statement
    • Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) closes the Elizabeth New Jersey immigration court after a case of COVID-19.
    • Effective March 26, 2020
42. 3/26/2020, H‑2A and H‑2B Interview Waivers—State Department Statement
    • Stops requiring visa interviews for returning and first time H‑2A and H‑2B visa applicants who have “no apparent ineligibility”
    • Effective March 26, 2020
43. 3/30/2020, Biometric Re-Submission Waivers—USCIS Statement
    • Allows applicants for Form I‑765, Application for Employment Authorization to submit renewal requests without needing to resubmit biometrics (which is impossible due to closed USCIS offices)
    • Effective March 30, 2020
44. 3/27/2020, USCIS Request Flexibility—USCIS Statement
    • Grants 60-day extensions to Requests for Evidence, Notice of Intent to Deny Notices of Intent to Revoke (NOIR) and Notices of Intent to Terminate, or appeals
    • Effective retroactive to March 1, 2020
45. 4/1/2020, New Orleans and Conroe Temporary Immigration Court Closures—EOIR Statements
    • The Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) closed the New Orleans and Conroe Immigration Courts for 1 day after COVID-19 exposures
    • Effective April 2, 2020
46. 4/2/2020, H‑2B Visa Expansion Stopped—DHS Statement
    • DHS rescinds previously announced 35,000 additional H‑2B visas for seasonal nonagricultural jobs on March 2, 2020.
    • Effective April 2, 2020
47. 4/6/2020, Immigration Court Scanned Signatures Allowed—EOIR Statement
    • Executive Office of Immigration Review announces it will accept scanned or electronically reproduced signatures for certain documents in immigration courts
    • Effective April 6, 2020
48. 4/8/2020, Visas for Doctors Allowed—State Department Statement
    • State Department announces it will still process visas for medical professionals
    • Effective April 8, 2020.
49. 4/15/2020, H‑2A Flexibility Rules—Temporary Final Rule
    • New rule allows H‑2A farmers to hire H‑2A workers already in the United States as soon as the employer submits a petition and allow H‑2A workers to exceed 3 years in the United States.
    • Effective April 16, 2020
50. 4/17/2020, Visa Waiver Program status extensions—USCIS Statement
    • Allows Visa Waiver Program travelers who have been granted satisfactory departure may apply for a 30-day extension of their admission period if they remain unable to depart the United States because of COVID-19
    • Effective April 17, 2020
51. 4/22/2020, Legal Immigration Suspension—Presidential Proclamation
    • Suspends immigrant visas for new prospective permanent residents for at least 60 days with exceptions for existing immigrant visa holders, spouses and minor children of citizens, special immigrant visa applicants, EB‑5 investors, and medical professionals or researchers.
    • Requires a review of nonimmigrant programs to assess potential changes.
    • Effective April 23, 2020.

Proposed Changes

4/10/2020, H‑2A Wage Change—Leaks

• The government is discussing ways to change how the H‑2A farm worker wage is calculated.
• Effective date uncertain

E‑Verify is a government program that is intended to stop the hiring of illegal immigrants. Firms that sign up for E‑Verify are supposed to enter the identity information of new hires into the government’s E‑Verify website. E‑Verify then checks that identity information, which is supposed to come from identity documents that the new hire provides, against information in government databases to guarantee that the new hire is eligible to work in the United States. The state of Florida is currently considering whether to mandate E‑Verify for some employers.

If E‑Verify returns a tentative non-confirmation (TNC) then the employer and new employee have a specific amount of time to resolve it by correcting errors or supplying different information. If E‑Verify is not satisfied then it issues a final non-confirmation (FNC) and identifies the new hire as an illegal immigrant. At that point, the employer must fire the new hire. The intent of the program is to make it very difficult or impossible for illegal immigrants to work in the United States.

That’s how E‑Verify is supposed to work. Based on a government answer to a FOIA that Cato filed, we are now able to look at the number of E‑Verify cases per state per year and the number of cases where E‑Verify found that a new hire is ineligible to work. The number of cases is the number of E‑Verify checks run by employers. These new data confirm one major problem with E‑Verify and reveal another: It just doesn’t work.

First, E‑Verify mandates do not result in mandatory use of E‑Verify. As we’ve explained elsewhere, a large percentage of new hires aren’t even run through the program. Arizona mandated E‑Verify for all new hires beginning on January 1, 2008. From then through the second quarter of 2016, the last quarter of information provided by the FOIA, an annual average of just 67 percent of new hires were run through E‑Verify (Table 1). According to Arizona’s mandate, 100 percent of new hires in Arizona were supposed to be run through E‑Verify. If Arizona can’t even force about one-third of all new hires to be run through E‑Verify then the program is in deep trouble.

The new problem revealed by this FOIA is just how few new hires are rejected because the system identifies them as illegal immigrants and, therefore, unauthorized to work. Beginning in 2008 when E‑Verify was mandated in Arizona for all new hires, the share of E‑Verify cases where the system identified the new hire as an illegal immigrant and therefore unauthorized to work peaked at 0.7 percent (Table 2). That was the first year of the mandate. After that, the percent dropped to about 0.1 percent in 2014 and has stayed there.

Of course, illegal immigrants are a much higher share of the population in Arizona than 0.7 percent or 0.1 percent. In other words, many thousands of illegal immigrants are getting jobs and either their employers are not using E‑Verify or E‑Verify is approving them to work. Figure 1 shows that about 6.4 percent of Arizona’s population were illegal immigrants in 2008, which fell to 4 percent in 2016 according to evidence from Pew and the American Community Survey.

Table 2 and Figure 1 likely downplay the ineffectiveness of E‑Verify because illegal immigrant men have labor force participation rates and employment rates above those of legal immigrant and native-born men. It could be that illegal immigrants are much less likely to switch jobs after E‑Verify is mandated, a phenomenon called “job lock.” This is recorded as reduced hires and reduced separations in government economic data. A recent working paper found that job lock among likely illegal immigrants does increase after E‑Verify mandates, decreasing new hires by between 5 and 7.3 percent and separations by between 6.1 and 7.3 percent.

But job lock cannot account for more than a small fraction of the tiny number of illegal immigrants excluded from employment under E‑Verify in Arizona. According to experimental JOLTS data on the state level that measures the amount of new hires and separations, there were about 9.7 million total separations in Arizona from January 1, 2008 through the second quarter of 2016 and about 9.8 million total new hires. Many illegal immigrants undoubtedly left Arizona to avoid E‑Verify, but a substantial number of illegal immigrants switched their jobs in Arizona after E‑Verify’s enactment and the system did not catch them.

Illegal immigrants are getting around E‑Verify in Arizona. Very few of them are being denied jobs by E‑Verify. Even by the standards of immigration restrictionists, it’s becoming an ineffective boondoggle. It’s time we ditch this program and start from scratch.

The government has so far kept to minimal and rational restrictions on travel in response to the coronavirus. My colleague Alex Nowrasteh has written about alternatives to outright immigration bans that could slow down the transmission of the deadly disease. But only scientific advancements will save thousands of lives, and it is here that many immigrants are working for treatments and vaccines that will stop the spread and treat the viral infection.

The major U.S. companies seeking a coronavirus vaccine or treatment have together received approvals from the Department of Labor to hire foreign workers with either green cards or H‑1B work visas more than 11,000 times from 2010 to 2019.[i] The eight companies to have used the legal immigration system (at least directly) to request foreign workers include Gilead Sciences, Moderna Therapeutics, GlaxoSmithKline, Inovio, Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceuticals, Regeneron, Vir Therapeutics, and Sanofi. Figure 1 shows the number of workers over the last decade.

Figure 2 shows the number of H‑1B workers for whom the Department of Labor has permitted a hire by the occupation of the worker. Over the last decade, the eight companies have received approvals for 3,310 biochemists, biophysicists, chemists, and other scientists. They have received approvals for 2,801 statisticians to analyze the data the scientists are producing. There were also approvals for 2,133 computer, database, and software support staff through the H‑1B program since 2010.

Gilead: One of the leading candidates to treat the disease comes from Gilead Sciences. In the last decade, Gilead has received approvals to sponsor green cards for 235 immigrants and H‑1B visas for 9,085 temporary workers from 2010 to 2019. Last year alone, it received Department of Labor H‑1B approvals for more than 300 biochemists, biophysicists, and other biological scientists and engineers. Gilead states that it “will enroll approximately 1,000 patients at medical centers primarily across Asian countries, as well as other countries globally with high numbers of diagnosed cases” this month to “evaluate the safety and efficacy of remdesivir in adults diagnosed with COVID-19.”

Moderna Therapeutics: Among the contenders for developing a coronavirus vaccines is Moderna Therapeutics. On February 24, 2020, it was reported that Moderna shipped vials of mRNA‐​1273 “to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to be used in the planned Phase 1 study in the U.S.” The company has sought green cards for 5 immigrants and received approvals for H‑1B visas on behalf of 76 skilled foreign workers from 2010 to 2019. In 2019, it received approvals for 18 H‑1Bs as biological technicians, biochemists, biophysicists or biomedical engineers.

GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals: GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals is partnering with a Chinese biotech firm to work on a coronavirus vaccine. From 2010 to 2019, it requested green cards for 20 immigrants and H‑1B visas for 435 skilled workers. It requested a dozen H‑1B workers in 2019 to work as biomedical engineers, biophysicists, biochemists, or other biological scientists.

Johnson & Johnson: Johnson & Johnson is working with U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority on a coronavirus vaccine. From 2010 to 2019, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals has requested 55 skilled H‑1B workers, including 9 biochemists, chemists, and biological scientists.

Regeneron: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals—who came up with an effective antibody cocktail for Ebola in 2015—is working to replicate that positive outcome for the coronavirus. The company has received approvals from the Department of Labor for green cards for 77 researchers and visas for 576 H‑1B skilled workers from 2010 to 2019. In the last year alone, it sought 60 H‑1B workers biological technicians, biochemists, biophysicists, chemists, or other biological scientists.

Sanofi: The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is also engaging with Sanofi to develop a coronavirus vaccine. From 2010 to 2019, Sanofi received approvals from the Department of Labor to hire 286 H‑1B workers and 21 immigrants through the green card process. Last year, it received several H‑1B approvals for biochemists, biophysicists, or other biological scientists. Sanofi is unique in that it brought on a chief executive as its chief medical officer through an H‑1B in 2010. Sanofi’s Chief Medical Officer is Dr. Ameet Nathwani who believes strongly in the value of diversity from around the world.

Vir Biotechnology: Vir Biotechnology is also developing a treatment for coronavirus by partnering with the Chinese firm WuXi Biologics. From 2010 to 2019, Vir Biotechnology has received approvals from the Department of Labor to hire 13 H‑1B skilled workers as well as 1 statistician as a green card holder. In 2019, it received H‑1B approvals for 5 biochemists, biophysicists, or microbiologists—three of which were senior research associates for virology (the study of viruses).

Inovio: Inovio Pharmaceuticals is collaborating with Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology Co. to “advance the development in China of INO-4800, Inovio’s vaccine against the recently emerged strain of coronavirus (2019‐​nCoV).” In the last decade, it has received approvals for three H‑1Bs.

With the coronavirus spreading globally, President Trump has downplayed the risks to calm the falling markets. But rhetoric will not cure the virus—only scientific advancement will. The president should request Congress expedite the process for scientists and researchers seeking H‑1Bs or green cards—not just for the sake of the current crisis but for all future crises as well.

[i] The data for this post come from the Department of Labor, which discloses the types of workers that it approves U.S. companies to hire as either permanent residents or H‑1B temporary workers. Unfortunately, the data do not indicate how long the worker was employed by the company who received the approval.

The Cato Institute published my latest Immigration Research and Policy Brief today. It provides basic facts about the H‑2A visa program that farms use to hire guest workers. It contains a massive table of the 209 major H‑2A rules that farmers must follow, which stretches for 14 pages in the print version, but perhaps nothing captures H‑2A’s oppressive level of regulatory morass than Figure 4’s flow chart of the H‑2A process.

The flow chart is a two-page maze of bureaucracy. It contains 69 action boxes. At every point there’s a possibility that an application or worker could be denied or delayed, upending the harvest for farmers. Its six sections represent the six government entities that conduct oversight over the H‑2A program and that have the power to bar employers from hiring workers. Embedded within each step are dozens of rules and requirements. Each box represents a cost to employers and workers preparing and justifying their need to hire or work in this country.

Looking at this interminable regulatory labyrinth, is it any wonder that illegal immigration continues?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Thursday that it would increase the number of H‑2B visas—for seasonal nonagricultural workers—by 35,000 for the rest of this year. Typically the program is capped at 66,000. In doing so, the department followed two pieces of guidance that my colleagues and I at Cato have urged: first, it increased the cap more than it did last year and second, it set aside some visas specifically for Central Americans to deter them from coming illegally.

While certainly not sufficient, both measures are positive developments.

In a post last month about how H‑2B wages far exceed minimum wages across every U.S. state, I called for the administration to exercise the authority that Congress gave it to increase the cap, and DHS responded this month with an increase of 35,000, which is a little more than half the cap increase that it could have allowed (64,000), but is nonetheless the most it has allowed in any year so far.

DHS also stipulated that it will guarantee 10,000 visas to citizens of the three Northern Triangle countries of Central America—Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. This is another bit of advice that my colleague Alex Nowrasteh and I have urged the government to do several times in recent years: create specific set-asides for certain Central American countries to provide a legal avenue for them to come to the United States to work.

While not nearly as many as they need, a 10,000 visa increase would triple the number of H‑2B visas that went to the Northern Triangle countries last year. As I explained in my Ted Talk, guest worker visas have dramatically reduced the amount of illegal immigration from Mexico. Figure 1 shows the number of seasonal guest workers admitted legally from Mexico and the number of Mexicans arrested crossing illegally over the last four decades. The expansion in H‑2B visas for seasonal nonagricultural jobs and H‑2A visas for seasonal farm jobs has greatly reduced the motivation to cross illegally.

The problem is that Central Americans have not benefited from the increase in seasonal guest workers. Figure 2 shows that the share of H‑2A and H‑2B visas issued to Central Americans from the Northern Triangle. The result is that the share of visas going to Central Americans has remained basically flat, even as their share of border apprehensions has exploded. 

There are several important reasons why nearly all H‑2A visas for farmers and most H‑2B visas for seasonal agricultural employers (mainly landscapers) go to Mexicans rather than Central Americans. As I laid out in my Cato policy analysis last year:

First, migrant workers cannot apply directly for H‑2 visas. U.S. employers must recruit the workers and petition for visas on their behalf, and employers have no incentive to recruit in the Northern Triangle. Second, with about 130 million people, Mexico has a much bigger labor market in which to recruit. By comparison, the three Northern Triangle countries have just 33 million combined, and the largest — Guatemala — has only 17 million. As long as U.S. wages remain much higher than Mexican wages, employers can always find enough willing workers in Mexico alone.

Third, U.S. recruiters of foreign workers already operate in Mexico, so the marginal costs of recruiting additional workers there is approaching zero. And Central Americans cannot simply go to Mexico to meet with U.S. recruiters there because U.S. law requires each worker to prove “a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning.” A Central American who has already abandoned his country once would not meet this requirement.

An added issue—that will certainly become relevant this year—is that the consular processing at embassies abroad for Central Americans is far more bureaucratic than for Mexicans. Mexican employers (or their hiring agents) can quickly schedule interview appointments in mass for all needed workers and otherwise manage the visa process through the Mexican consular affairs Yatri filling system. They can even schedule appointments even before the visa application is in, saving a lot of time for everyone. By contrast, the embassies in Central America all require individual accounts for every worker, which can be very burdensome to navigate on behalf of dozens or hundreds of workers. Workers who forget their passwords or email addresses that they used last year can be locked out this year, holding up the whole process.

For these reasons, employers would rather continue to hire Mexicans as long as they can regardless of the border security implications. By creating a specific carve-out of visas, DHS has forced businesses to seek out and hire Central Americans, diverting them from the illegal trek north. Unfortunately, this move was done at the last possible minute with no warning to employers, which could prevent them from having time to go to Central America, get through the process, and get their workers. In the future, DHS should announce the set-aside as soon as it legally can to prevent this situation from recurring. The State Department should expand the Yatri processing system into Central America. 

It’s important to understand how immigrants affect crime in their new countries. However, crime data across countries are hard to come by and even harder to compare as laws vary significantly between jurisdictions, different countries have radically different criminal justice systems, and many countries don’t systematically publish incarceration data that identify the foreign-born population.

Fortunately, a wonderful new book entitled Does Immigration Increase Crime? By Francesco Fasani, Giovanni Mastrobuoni, Emily G. Owens, and Paolo Pinotti includes a figure that helps tremendously. Figure 1 below is an updated version of their figure 1.7 on page 18 of their book. It shows the foreign-born share of the population across 20 OECD countries compared to the foreign-born share of the prison populations in those countries. The prisoner data come from the Centre for Prison Studies and the population data from the OECD. Figure 1 uses the most updated data for both with no other controls.

Figure 1 shows a wide range in foreign-born shares of the incarcerated population and shares of the total population. In 13 of the 20 OECD countries listed, the foreign-born share of prisoners is higher than their share of the population – often multiple-times higher. This is evidence that the foreign-born population of those countries has a disproportionately higher crime rate. In seven OECD countries, the foreign-born share of the prison population is below their share of the total population, suggesting that they have a disproportionately lower crime rate.

Figure 2 is the difference between the foreign-born share of the prison population and the foreign-born share of the total population. Bars that are above zero show that foreign-born people have a higher incarceration share than their share of the population. Bars that are below zero show that the foreign-born have an incarceration share below their share of the population.

Poland, Hungary, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand all have foreign-born shares of their prison populations that are below their shares of the total population.

If the 20 OECD countries analyzed here were considered as a single country, the foreign-born share of the total population would be 13.5 percent and the foreign-born share of the prison population would be 8.2 percent. That result is driven by the United States, which accounts for 40 percent of the total population of those 20 countries, 40 percent of the foreign-born population, 80 percent of the prisoners, and a very low foreign-born incarceration rate.

My biggest concern with these numbers is data quality. The Centre for Prison Studies gathers the data from multiple different sources in different countries, so I can’t verify whether they are of good quality. Additionally, the share of the population incarcerated is just one measure of criminality and should be considered alongside others. Regardless, the figures above, inspired by Does Immigration Increase Crime?, shed some light on this important topic.

The government exists to protect American citizens from threats to their lives, liberties, and property by supplying public goods that would not be supplied through the market or other voluntary means. In the sphere of immigration policy, this means preventing the travel of foreign-born terrorists, individuals who pose a national security threat, and criminals to the United States. Another category of people who should be barred is those with serious contagious diseases, as I’ve written before. The transmissions of the SARS-CoV‑2/COVID-19 virus, which causes the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), makes this a pressing issue again.

In response to COVID-19, President Trump created minor travel restrictions and redirected flights, some Senators are calling to ban travel with China, and rumors of additional government actions all mean that we should consider less-costly alternatives to combat the transmission of the virus. Travel-and-immigration-bans are costly, what other options does the government have?

There is growing evidence that COVID-19’s case fatality rate (CFR) is substantially higher than the normal flu with deaths concentrated on the elderly and those with comorbidities. It’s important to note that the CFR is a fatality rate for those who contract COVID-19, not a fatality rate for the entire population. That’s not much of a relief as the fatality rate is high, but it does help us get a better picture of COVID-19’s threat to particular groups. For instance, COVID-19’s CFR is 2.3 percent according to recent evidence from Mainland China. The CFR for those aged 39 and younger is 0.21 percent, but it is 5.96 percent for those aged 60 and above. Protecting the elderly should thus be of prime concern as younger people, especially children, don’t appear to be much affected.

There are several different ways for policymakers to respond to COVID-19. A travel-and-immigration ban is an appropriate policy response if two conditions are met. First, the benefits of a travel-and-immigration-ban are greater than the costs of a travel ban. Second, there are no other less-costly options. This analysis will compare the breakeven point to show how many lives a travel-and-immigration-ban would have to save to make sense. It will then further compare the cost of those less-costly policies that will have big positive impacts.

The Breakeven Points for a Travel and Immigration Ban

Finding the breakeven point at which the benefits of reduced deaths from COVID-19 equal the costs incurred by a U.S. ban on travel and immigration helps form the outermost boundaries of a possible policy response. COVID-19 is spreading from China to other countries, with outbreaks reported in Italy, Iran, Korea, Taiwan, and elsewhere. Currently, there are more new cases of COVID-19 reported outside of China than inside, so it’s conceivable that policymakers will react in this extreme way.

Travel-and-immigration-bans are expensive. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimated that tourism contributed about $1.595 trillion to U.S. GDP in 2018 and 18.8 percent, or about $299.86 billion, was from international travel. Also, blocking the roughly 500,000 immigrants who receive a green card abroad each year and those who enter on temporary work visas would also diminish their contributions to GDP. Looking at average salaries of immigrants as a decent proxy of their contribution to GDP, combined with the tourist spending, a travel-and-immigration-ban would impose a cost of $323 billion to the U.S. economy in the first year.

The statistical value of a life in the United States, which is the average dollar value that individuals place on their own lives based on the risk-money trade-offs that they make, is about $10 million. Dividing the $323 billion cost of a travel and immigration ban for the first year by the $10 million statistical value of life reveals how many lives would have to be saved in the first year of such a ban so that the purely economic costs equal the benefits. Thus, a moratorium on travel and immigration would have to prevent 32,302 deaths to breakeven. This doesn’t include the cost of people being sick, which is most of COVID-19 cases, and the cost imposed on people outside of the United States as well as the long-term costs to the U.S. economy such as lower growth and broken global supply chains.

Deaths and sickness aren’t the only costs imposed by COVID-19. Most of the negative impact would be due to people’s reactions and avoidance behaviors, according to a World Bank background paper on pandemics. As the author of that paper explained, “those costs created by behavioral changes to avoid infection would be aggravated by likely confusion triggered by incomplete or inaccurate information and other inadequacies in individual subjective risk assessments.” Healthy people changing their behavior to avoid becoming sick imposes another huge cost, similar to the cost that taxes impose by changing individual behavior. It’s important that healthy people adjust their behavior enough to reduce the cost of COVID-19, but not so much that the extra cost imposed by their changing behavior outweighs the potential damage done by the virus.

There are, of course, other considerations and values, but those above are a starting point. Most of the above assumes a relatively short pandemic. If it extends for longer then the net-present value of different long-term policy changes must also be weighed against the costs of business as normal. If many deaths, illnesses, and other costly behavior from COVID-19 can be prevented or mitigated by means other than a travel or immigration ban, then we should take those instead of the expensive options – at least at first. What are some of those options?

Less-Costly Actions to Limit the Spread of COVID-19

The spread of COVID-19 is a great example of an externality, which is an economic term for a cost or benefit incurred or received by a third party. The best example of a negative externality is air pollution, such as when a factory emits air pollution that imposes a cost on neighbors. The best example of a positive externality is herd immunity that is created by a vaccine.

Externalities lead to inefficient economic outcomes. In the case of negative externalities, costs imposed on third parties are not borne by the economic actors that produce the cost, meaning that they will overproduce whatever good or service creates that cost. In the case of positive externalities, benefits produced for third parties will not accrue to the people producing the benefits, so they will underproduce whatever it is that leads to those benefits.

Travel-and-immigration-bans aren’t the only policy options available to the government. There are many less-costly and less intrusive marginal measures that the government can take to reduce the spread of COVID-19 that it should consider before attempting the more expensive actions. Economists have proposed numerous ways to correct for the overproduction of goods and services with negative externalities and the underproduction of goods and services with positive externalities. They and some other economic concepts can help us understand different ways to reduce the danger from COVID-19 while being mindful of trade-offs and selecting the best options.

Pigovian Taxes and Subsidies

A Pigovian tax is a tax on any market activity that produces a negative externality when the cost of that negative externality is not included in the market price. The Pigovian tax is supposed to raise the private marginal cost of production to the marginal social cost of production, which reduces the production of the negative externality-creating good or service and internalizes the cost of the externality through higher prices for consumers and reduced profit for producers. One difficulty is figuring out the optimal tax rate for a negative externality.

Pigovian taxes on activities that spread COVID-19, such as traveling to countries with high infection rates, taking airplane trips in general, working while sick, or failing to maintain hand hygiene, would help to reduce COVID-19’s spread. It would be easy for the government to tax travel as there are already high taxes on airplane tickets, but difficult to maintain hand hygiene. A tax for being sick in public might reduce private disease-mitigation behavior like wearing a mask or encouraging other behavior to hide illness, which could be worse than doing nothing. It’s also hard to see how levying a tax for failing to maintain hand hygiene could function. Perhaps, the tax revenue raised from a Pigovian tax on travel could be used to create a Pigovian subsidy for increased hand sanitation in airports or other places with a lot of foot traffic.

A recent paper found that mandated sick pay in American cities reduced the rate at which people contracted the flu by as much as 40 percent during the flu season, presumably because many more sick people actually face a lower cost of staying home and so choose to do so. Forcing mandatory sick pay is an expensive policy however, partly because it increases shirking and the cost of hiring workers. But fining employees who show up with the flu or ticketing a business that lets somebody work while they are sick with the flu would be a strong temporary negative incentive.

Pigovian subsidies and taxes could also increase social distancing, a strategy used by public health officials to reduce large public gatherings of people to inhibit the spread of disease. The government could immediately reduce taxes on firms that let their employees work remotely, creating an incentive that will increase work outside of the office. They could raise the prices for mass transportation. Without a subsidy, public schools could allow distance learning and for students to study from home through the internet. For instance, schools in Japan are shutting down on March 2. The government could immediately let workers telework every day.

Coase Theorem

The Coase Theorem is a different way of reducing negative externalities. The theorem states that, under certain circumstances, bargains and exchanges can reduce negative externalities by efficiently exchanging property rights between the creator of a negative externality and the third party incurring the cost. In other words, both parties can change their behaviors or exchange resources to decrease the damage of an externality or compensate those harmed. Since both parties have a better understanding of their own costs, they are much more likely to reach a mutually beneficial bargain than having one imposed on them by a Pigovian tax.

There are two conditions critical to striking a Coasean bargain. The first is that transaction costs need to be low enough to allocate all property rights in a way to adjust negative externalities down to an efficient level. When transaction costs are positive –as they always are in the real world –the cost of finding the polluter and victim, negotiating, and enforcing a solution need to be less than or equal to the benefits of the bargain. If those transaction costs are too great, the Coasean bargain will not occur.

Property rights are also important for these bargains. One of the main insights here is that if property rights are secure and transferrable and transaction costs are low, people will exchange property and make Coasean bargains to decrease the cost of negative externalities to the point where the benefits equal the costs. The negative externality will not disappear, it will decrease or change to the point where the last bit of the negative externality produced will be equal to the economic value of the last good produced.

There are fewer lessons from the Coase theorem for reducing the spread of disease, but perhaps I’m just not creative enough to think of them. In the example of COVID-19, changing the behavior of those with COVID-19 or the behavior of healthy people will reduce the negative externality. The action that should be taken is that which reduces the externality at the cheapest cost down to the point where the marginal cost of the last measure to reduce spread is equal to the marginal benefit of less disease.

The government could assign property rights and liabilities to different parties to make them responsible for the spread of COVID-19, such as making airlines liable for an outbreak that occurs as a result of the transportation of sick passengers, but that will be difficult to prove and hard to ex ante protect against. Sometimes, people travel when they are infected but before they have symptoms. Furthermore, even with such a reassignment of property rights, the transaction costs would be high. It seems unlikely that, without new and secure property rights and lower transaction costs, that we can rely on the Coase theorem to produce a better outcome.

Reduce Imperfect Information

One of the problems in a pandemic is that some people who are sick do not know that they have fallen ill yet. As a result, they transmit the illness without being aware that they are exposing other people to the sickness. Economist Vincent Geloso summarizes a paper by Alice Mesnard and Paul Seabright in the Journal of Public Economics about the problems that arise in this scenario. It’s difficult to know who is sick and who is not, so quarantines end up locking many sick people in with many healthy people. Healthy people and those who think they are healthy to understand accurately that they would reduce their chance of becoming ill if they emigrate. By doing that, some people transmit the disease. Under some scenarios, the stricter the quarantine, the more people invest in emigrating. Sometimes, this behavioral response results in wider transmission of the disease.

Related to informational problems, many people might voluntarily take actions to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 because they themselves don’t want to get sick. Although COVID-19 is an externality in that people spread it unintentionally, it also frequently imposes very heavy costs on those who get ill. Thus, reducing ignorance would improve behavior and reduce the spread of COVID-19 on its own.

For instance, making higher risk people aware of the danger and of cheap ways to reduce their likelihood of contracting the illness would reduce its spread. People voluntarily engage in self-protective behavior when confronted with a pandemic. According to a paper published in 2013, many travelers changed their travel itinerary when they became aware of swine flu. It stands to reason, then, that making travelers aware of COVID-19 will increase their hand hygiene. After all, washing one’s hands more is a much less-costly way to avoid disease than canceling a flight.

Making hand sanitizer commonly and easily available will also help here. Putting hand sanitizer stations or handwashing stations in airports with big signs that let people know that keeping their hands clean will reduce the chance of getting sick and spreading the disease will boost hand hygiene at a low cost. Another way to reduce asymmetric information is through travel warnings to places with large-scale outbreaks. The State Department already releases these and should continue to do so.

Because COVID-19’s CFR is so much higher for the elderly than for the rest of the population, wide-spread dissemination of this information to retirement homes and along with monthly Social Security checks could help increase self-quarantines, where the elderly create cultural distance and thus reduce their chance of death. Since many elderly people are retired, the economic costs of this would be minor as they have generally lower opportunity cost, even though it would be boring and alienating for a lot of people in the short term.

However, it’s also important that people don’t overreact and take extremely costly precautions to avoid becoming sick. People should still go to work and should not run to the mountains and shoot all people they meet as if they’re living through The Walking Dead. The spread of information that can reduce overreactions is just as important as spreading information that helps people take reasonable precautions that pass a cost-benefit test.

Regulatory Changes

As mentioned above, the cheapest and most effective way to combat the transmission of flu-type viruses is proper hand hygiene. Concentrating resources on increasing hand hygiene in airports, where diseases spread rapidly due to unsanitary conditions that can easily propagate around the world, can greatly reduce the spread of a global pandemic. A recent paper published in the journal Risk Analysis found that increasing traveler’s engagement with hand hygiene at all airports can inhibit the spread of a potential pandemic by 24 percent to 69 percent.

The authors use Monte Carlo simulations to test how increases in hand hygiene in airports affect the outcomes of epidemiological models of disease transmission. They start with the assumption of a steady state that 20 percent of people in airports at any given time have clean hands. Increasing the steady state to 30 percent across all airports reduces the impact of the disease by 23.7 percent while increasing it to 60 percent reduces it by 69.1 percent. They use a different measurement of disease impact and get estimates of an 18.2 percent to 55.4 percent decrease in impact if 30 percent and 60 percent of people in airports have clean hands, respectively. Regardless, the effect of increased hand hygiene is large.

The government could immediately increase hand hygiene at airports by having TSA agents squirt hand sanitizer into the palms of all passengers who go through security. This would do more good for the world than the TSA has likely ever done. At a bare minimum, the TSA could put hand sanitizers at the front and end of every security line. This week, my colleague Emma Ashford went through security at Ronald Reagan National Airport and noticed there was no hand sanitizer available to the public – it was all behind the rope and set aside for TSA agents. Moving hand sanitizer forward is a good first step. TSA could pay a little overtime to its agents and have them squirt the hands of passengers with hand sanitizer as they deplane or board too. The government could even ask airlines to do that and put hand sanitizers at each gate. Many bathrooms at large airports have attendants, they should remind everybody to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

Conclusion

A mix of the policy options above, from Pigovian taxes and subsidies to small changes in property rights as well as reducing ignorance and other regulatory changes at airports, could have a large effect in reducing the spread of COVID-19 at a very low cost. Extreme options like travel-and-immigration-bans might be appropriate if the expected cost of COVID-19 climbs beyond a certain point, but less-costly policies should be tried first. In other words, let’s have TSA agents squirt hand sanitizer into the hands of all travelers before closing the airports.