Editor's Note: Alice Driver is a freelance journalist whose work focuses on migration, human rights, and gender equality. She works from Mexico City and is the author of "More or less dead: femicide, persecution and ethics of representation in Mexico." The opinions expressed in this comment are those of the author. See more opinion articles on CNNe.com/opinion.
(CNN) - “We are not going anywhere. Absolutely nowhere, ”Honduran immigrant Nora Martínez told me in May while sitting in a makeshift store in Matamoros, on the US-Mexico border. She was concerned about the processing of her asylum application, which had been interrupted by the Trump government due to the covid-19 pandemic.
I have returned to Nora's words this week; As a US citizen living abroad, I'm not going anywhere either. Although I report on migration and the difficulties migrants face in crossing borders, I have always crossed them with privileges and facilities.
As covid-19 cases continue to rise in the U.S., for the first time in my life, I am witnessing how the country's lack of leadership in managing the pandemic is devaluing my passport.
For example, European nations began opening their borders to non-essential travelers on July 1, but American citizens were not included in that resolution. And despite the fact that the US represents one of the largest tourist markets for the Bahamas, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis, citing the increase in cases of covid-19, blocked the entry of tourists of that nationality.
I have watched President Donald Trump's behavior as covid-19 cases continue to rise across the country, and beyond the endless testimonies of health workers about the complexity of treating the virus, from the stories about decomposing bodies. Of the people who died from the new coronavirus that were stored in containers and of a litany of other horrors, he has focused primarily on praising his handling of the crisis.
Many countries legitimately fear that American travelers will spread the covid-19. The result is that they have closed their borders to passport holders of this nationality. Lack of leadership has cost the country dearly, because that document, which was once a symbol of the privileges of possessing this citizenship, is now viewed with suspicion.
I understand this feeling of mistrust, because the way Trump and his government have handled the pandemic link American citizens with racist and unscientific ideas.
For example, the president has repeatedly called covid-19 the China virus. This has helped fuel an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the pandemic.
Trump has also taken advantage of the covid-19 to make derogatory and false comments about Mexico, including the suggestion that Mexicans are infecting U.S. citizens. On July 11 he said: “It turned out to be very fortunate for us that we had the wall; otherwise we would have been flooded because they have some big problems there [in Mexico]. "
I live in Mexico and this country has significantly fewer cases and deaths from coronavirus than the United States. In fact, I am afraid to return to my country not so much because of the pandemic, which some countries have shown can be managed, but because of the way Trump his government politicized the science of covid-19 prevention.
I have been talking to my parents who live in rural Arkansas and weighing the risk of visiting them. As I write this, my parents' neighbors, many of them Trump supporters, are organizing to protest the obligation to wear face masks in public. Against all logic, masks have become political symbols in the United States.
After months of refusing to wear a face mask and as the country approached 143,000 covid-19 deaths, for the first time Trump called to wear what he described as a patriotic mask.
The result of the staggering mismanagement of the response to the pandemic is that the power and status that American citizens have enjoyed for decades is declining rapidly.
When I interviewed migrants during the pandemic, many told me that they would rather seek asylum in Canada than in the United States.
The Trump administration has used the new coronavirus as an excuse to temporarily end asylum, serving as a reminder that the U.S. seeks to bring justice to those fleeing persecution in their home countries.
Although the U.S. government discontinued the review of asylum applications, it has continued to process deportations, including that of those with covid-19. With this decision, the virus spreads to other countries.
Like many migrants, US citizens also talk more frequently about moving to Canada, which has handled the coronavirus much better than its country. And you have a universal healthcare system (read: you won't get a $ 400,000 medical bill if you survive the coronavirus).
The most pressing problem in the United States is not the coronavirus itself, but the continued ignorance and deliberate ineptitude of the way the Trump administration handles it.
As Ed Yong, who covers science at The Atlantic, succinctly explained in an interview with Christiane Amanpour: “The question that worries me the most is not how long it will take to get a vaccine, but whether a country that is doing as badly as we are in the control of the covid-19 will be able to implement a vaccine in an equitable and efficient way. I'm not sure I have faith in the process. ”
As Yong points out, even if the U.S. has a covid-19 vaccine, given the absence of leadership from the Trump administration, the coronavirus is likely to be a long-term problem.
As countries close their borders to US citizens, some of us may experience the inconvenience of not being able to visit family, friends, or loved ones living abroad. As the US closes its borders and suspends the asylum process, applicants are left in limbo, and many, like Nora Martínez, live in camps due to overcrowding in shelters.
What many US citizens and migrants clearly recognize, perhaps for the first time, is that, under the current government, the US has used the new coronavirus as an excuse to promote disinformation and attack essential human rights such as asylum. The real cost of the country's lack of leadership will be measured far more than in those countries that close their borders to US passport holders.
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