Migrant Lives Matter

The Migrant Lives Matter slogan was first used in a 2015 protest against European governments letting asylum seekers die at sea rather than offering them refuge (De Genova 2018). Much like the Black Lives Matter activism the slogan connects to migrant activists and their allies have been calling out state-sanctioned structural violence that treats racialised/migrant bodies as worthless and disposable and consciously puts their lives at risk.

In Aotearoa New Zealand (hereafter, Aotearoa), migrant activists adopted the Migrant Lives Matter slogan in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic to draw attention to the exclusionary and dehumanising effects of the New Zealand Government's Covid-19 response on migrants. As Aotearoa closed its borders to all but permanent residents and returning New Zealand citizens on 19 March 2020, the lives of temporary visa holders were thrown into disarray. Many of those who were in Aotearoa at the time lost jobs and faced financial difficulties, with often little access to the social support available to residents and citizens. For some time, they faced insecurities about their prospects of remaining in Aotearoa as visa processing was curbed or suspended. In addition, temporary visa holders in Aotearoa were immobilised in so far as had they wanted or needed to journey overseas, they would have had to forfeit any possibility of return. Meanwhile, temporary visa holders who happened to be overseas on 19 March 2020 – including those readying themselves to migrate to Aotearoa as well as those already home in Aotearoa but momentarily absent – found, and more than two years later continue to find, themselves in limbo. While Aotearoa's borders were closed, the vast majority of those migrants were unable to return, no matter how long they had previously lived in Aotearoa, no matter whether they had jobs or studies to return to, and no matter whether their family members lived in Aotearoa. Initial short-term blanket extensions of temporary visas, a one-off 2021 Resident Visa and the gradual opening of the border since May 2022 have brought relief to some, though by no means all, of the temporary visa holders in and outside of Aotearoa. Rather than offering a blanket amnesty to all onshore temporary visa holders, the one-off 2021 Resident Visa, for instance, retained a range of exclusions based on the perceived value of migrants centred on a ‘settled, skilled or scarce’ logic.