Page - 403 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

403Spread of Anti-Asian Racism: Prevention and Critical Race Analysis in Pandemic Planning are forced to work in part-time positions in multiple facilities to sur- vive economically. What is often overlooked, however, is that these conditions are not those constructed by the migrant worker but by the industry or employers paying low wages or ignoring basic liv- ing, employment, and labour rights.45 Y. Y. Chen and Sarah Berger Richardson in Chapters D-8 and E-5 of this volume write about how working conditions for migrant workers make them vulnerable to infection. The pandemic has amplified the vulnerabilities of those with temporary immigration status in Canada. While migrant workers are among those exempted from the restrictions at the border, their temporary immigration status is the very reason they may be seen as carriers of COVID-19, even though the conditions that promote the spread are not under their control. The precarity of migrant workers’ immigration status has contributed to the exploitative and abusive conditions46 (including the inability to be physically distant, lack of proper safety equipment, low pay, part-time nature of the job, and fear of reprisals or loss of the job) which potentially allow the virus to spread. Their experience during the pandemic raises questions about why these workers don’t have immediate pathways to permanent residence in Canada, especially because it is the temporality of their immigration status that allows exploitative conditions to exist. The fact that some of the migrant workers are racialized fuels public dis- course that the spread of the virus at these workplaces is due to their presence there, and not the conditions of their employment. Including Race-Based Analysis in a Pandemic Plan Policy-makers have many factors to consider. It is an unenviable posi- tion to be dealing with a new, unknown, and unpredictable harm. Public health officials should consider, when evaluating the need to protect the public with restrictive practices, how those measures affect racialized persons. There is emerging data showing racialized persons, like Black, Latinx, and South Asian persons, are more likely 45. Ethel Tungohan, “Filipino Healthcare Workers During COVID-19 and the Importance of Race-Based Analysis” (1 May 2020), online (blog): The  Broadbent  Blog  <www.broadbentinstitute.ca/filipino_healthcare_workers_during_covid19_ and_the_importance_of_race_based_analysis>. 46. Amrita Hari, “Temporariness, Rights and Citizenship: The Latest Chapter in Canada’s Exclusionary Migration and Refugee History” (2014) 30:2 Refuge 35.