Join Amnesty International USA for a Teleconference Briefing on Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the Age of COVID-19
Refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced people around the world are at heightened risk as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads: many live in overcrowded conditions, lack access to clean water and medical care, and have limited resources to address emergent needs. There are now confirmed COVID-19 cases in Cox’s Bazar, the town in Bangladesh closest to the world’s most populous refugee camp, home to almost 860,000 Rohingya.
Meanwhile, at the U.S. border, the Trump administration has used the pandemic to achieve a long-sought policy objective: ending access to asylum at the border. The administration is turning back and rapidly deporting all asylum seekers, including unaccompanied children, thereby forcing them into perilous conditions and endangering their lives. It is keeping tens of thousands of asylum seekers and migrants locked up in U.S. jails and detention facilities, which are tinderboxes for a possible COVID-19 outbreak.
Yet even as the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control dispense advice for the general public, many of the measures they suggest are impossible to implement for refugees and migrants.
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WHAT: Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the Age of COVID-19
WHEN: Wednesday, April 22 at 1 p.m. (EST)
WHO:
- Charanya Krishnaswami, Americas Advocacy Director
- Ryan Mace, Senior Policy Advisor
- Matt Wells, Deputy Director, Crisis Response Program
- Joanne Lin, National Director, Advocacy and Government Affairs
HOW: Register here for call-in information