OPINION: Everything is Not About the Border: How Trump Uses His Immigration Playbook for Coronavirus

We shouldn’t be surprised that, even weeks into the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump continues to point to border closings and travel bans as among his most significant responses. After all, it is the presidential power he has wielded most often, and it’s the tool he seems most comfortable wielding. This week the administration announced sending 500 more troops to the US-Mexico border, this time using the virus as a rationale. But, to twist the old adage a bit, even when your only tool is a hammer, not everything is a nail.

This administration, and Trump in particular, has put immigration and border security front and center from the start. During Trump’s first week in office he issued the so-called “Muslim” travel ban to “protect the country from terrorism.” He has made successive national emergency declarations to build a wall along the US-Mexico border to, in his words, stop drugs and criminals. In response to the arrival of families and children seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, his administration issued orders to separate families, sent them back to Mexico to await hearings, signed agreements to deport them back to Guatemala, and changed regulations to deny them access to seeking asylum.

In the current crisis, Trump issued travel bans for China almost immediately, and, just as it became clear that the virus was spreading at large in the United States, he issued a travel ban for Europe. More recently, his administration used authority from public health law to issue a new declaration to send migrants – including unaccompanied children – immediately out of the country with no immigration process. He then announced restrictions on cross-border activity with Canada and Mexico and reportedly is looking to send military troops to the Canadian border. And yet, the World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 a “pandemic,” which literally means they recognize that it is no longer contained in any country or countries and is now spreading in many countries simultaneously. In other words, this isn’t, and never really was, about the border.

Medical experts acknowledge that in the initial stages of an epidemic or outbreak, travel restrictions may slow the spread of the disease to new areas, and give time for the medical systems to prepare a response for when it does eventually spread. But viruses know no borders and recognize no travel restrictions. Many types of infections are contagious with no or relatively minor symptoms and are usually spread by travelers before the system can notice there is a new virus at play. And once it has begun spreading, our globally interconnected world means that a virus is likely to continue to spread until a vaccine or treatment is created and widely disseminated.

To be fair, the China travel ban may have slowed the arrival of new cases to U.S. shores. But the recent actions are unlikely to have much of an effect on the trajectory of cases in the United States, mainly because travel from Europe and across the land borders was already down, as the public has responded to pleas to stay at home, and the novel coronavirus is already here and community spread is happening.

However, Trump’s past rhetoric around securing borders and his focus on deterring and preventing migrants has colored the response to his recent border actions. He has continued to accuse migrants of bringing the disease to the United States although experts believe the first cases were brought by returning Americans. He highlights his border restrictions as being the most effective against the virus, while expressing ambivalence toward stay-at-home orders by governors and the social distancing recommended by his own health officials. In particular, strictures against asylum seekers at the border and sending of additional troops to the border seem more about advancing his immigration and border agenda than responding to a particular concern about further transmission of the disease.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we should pay no attention to our borders. Mitigating additional spread by discouraging travel can play the same role as domestic social isolation—flattening the curve and buying time for the health system to develop treatment and vaccines. However, we are far past the time when stopping travel will impact domestic cases. More important efforts should be focused on the public health systems inside the United States that will have to deal with this virus over the next months.

In short, this is the type of threat that doesn’t recognize borders and is not deterred by “get tough” rhetoric. This threat responds to science, and data, and communities working together to protect everyone. And that is a new strategy that this administration is having to learn how to adapt, hopefully not too late, to further mitigate the crisis.