In this paper, Luisa Feline Freier proposes that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need of a shift towards including public health considerations from a human security perspective when considering the need for legal pathways to migration and migrant regularization. She first outlines why there is an urgent need for regularization in the context of both migrant health and public health more broadly, before then detailing a number of positive examples of states taking a creative approach to migrant regularization in the context of the pandemic.

This paper is part of a series of short “think pieces” by IOM’s Migration Research and Publishing High-Level Advisers on the potential changes, impacts and implications for migration and mobility arising from COVID-19. Designed to spark thinking on policy and programmatic responses to COVID-19 as its impacts continue to emerge globally, the papers draw upon existing and new evidence and offer initial exploratory analysis and recommendations.