The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated social discrimination against migrants around the world. However, research on the forms of social stigma faced by the returned migrants in their home countries is absent. Based on in-depth interviews with Bangladeshi migrants who returned from Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article explores their experiences of discrimination and social harassment in Bangladesh. Drawing on Link’s and Phelan’s (2001) conceptual framework of social stigma, this study finds that returned migrants experienced different forms of social harassment and stigmatization, including labeling, stereotyping, social separation, status loss, and discrimination.
KEYWORDS: returned migrants, social stigma, COVID-19, Bangladesh, Italy

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated social discrimination against migrants around the world. However, research on the forms of social stigma faced by the returned migrants in their home countries is absent. Based on in-depth interviews with Bangladeshi migrants who returned from Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article explores their experiences of discrimination and social harassment in Bangladesh. Drawing on Link’s and Phelan’s (2001) conceptual framework of social stigma, this study finds that returned migrants experienced different forms of social harassment and stigmatization, including labeling, stereotyping, social separation, status loss, and discrimination.
KEYWORDS: returned migrants, social stigma, COVID-19, Bangladesh, Italy

This article examines the plight of migrant Muslim garbage pickers during the COVID-19 lockdown in India and their struggles to return home to Assam. Their financial hardships were exacerbated by social, political, and religious prejudices. Belonging to the Bengali-speaking miya community, deemed “Bangladeshi,” government authorities neglected them. The lockdown’s hyped-up anti-Muslim propaganda also reduced them to “corona jihadis.” The author reads their struggles as a case study of the Muslim condition in India and argues for civic engagement for redressing the condition of the marginal and vulnerable. The research was conducted through telephone and Zoom calls and in-person interviews. 
KEYWORDS: Assam migrants, COVID-19, lockdown, miyas, Muslim precariat, India

This article examines the plight of migrant Muslim garbage pickers during the COVID-19 lockdown in India and their struggles to return home to Assam. Their financial hardships were exacerbated by social, political, and religious prejudices. Belonging to the Bengali-speaking miya community, deemed “Bangladeshi,” government authorities neglected them. The lockdown’s hyped-up anti-Muslim propaganda also reduced them to “corona jihadis.” The author reads their struggles as a case study of the Muslim condition in India and argues for civic engagement for redressing the condition of the marginal and vulnerable. The research was conducted through telephone and Zoom calls and in-person interviews. 
KEYWORDS: Assam migrants, COVID-19, lockdown, miyas, Muslim precariat, India

The study surveyed 227 returned labor migrants in four districts of western Odisha to comprehensively analyze the socio-economic vulnerabilities faced by internal returnee labor migrants caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The results show that the partial and complete lockdown caused factory and workplace closures in the entire country. Consequently, millions of migrants suffered a loss of income and faced an uncertain future which motivated migrant workers to return to their home villages. Upon arrival, they met socio-economic vulnerabilities, encountered social and economic discrimination, and were excluded by their family members and fellow villagers, which impacted their behavioral health. 
KEYWORDS: internal returnee labor migrants, COVID-19, vulnerabilities, India

The study surveyed 227 returned labor migrants in four districts of western Odisha to comprehensively analyze the socio-economic vulnerabilities faced by internal returnee labor migrants caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The results show that the partial and complete lockdown caused factory and workplace closures in the entire country. Consequently, millions of migrants suffered a loss of income and faced an uncertain future which motivated migrant workers to return to their home villages. Upon arrival, they met socio-economic vulnerabilities, encountered social and economic discrimination, and were excluded by their family members and fellow villagers, which impacted their behavioral health. 
KEYWORDS: internal returnee labor migrants, COVID-19, vulnerabilities, India

The coronavirus crisis exposed and exacerbated inequalities that already existed. Simultaneously, it has transformed inequalities, changing old ones, generating new ones, intertwining the old and the new. A test of these processes, in particular, of the differentiated impact of the health crisis, may be observed in migration. After examining the ecological-social origins of the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 related racial health inequalities, the article analyzes the consequences of the pandemic on the health and working conditions of immigrant workers, asylum seekers, emigrants in travel. It highlights the syndemic situation affecting them.
KEYWORDS: coronavirus, inequalities, migration, pandemic, syndemics

The coronavirus crisis exposed and exacerbated inequalities that already existed. Simultaneously, it has transformed inequalities, changing old ones, generating new ones, intertwining the old and the new. A test of these processes, in particular, of the differentiated impact of the health crisis, may be observed in migration. After examining the ecological-social origins of the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 related racial health inequalities, the article analyzes the consequences of the pandemic on the health and working conditions of immigrant workers, asylum seekers, emigrants in travel. It highlights the syndemic situation affecting them.
KEYWORDS: coronavirus, inequalities, migration, pandemic, syndemics

Deriving from multiple ecological-social causes, the novel coronavirus and, subsequently, the COVID-19 pandemic, has affected all spheres of societies of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered and amplified an economic crisis that existed before the health crisis. The combination of the two crises into a double “ecological-­healthcare” and “socio-economic” crisis has had multiple consequences for everyone on the economic, social, political, and cultural level; however, it has affected social classes, workers, genders, and territories in different ways, deepening social inequalities and worsening the social conditions of disadvantaged social groups: among the most affected social groups, we find migrants.

Deriving from multiple ecological-social causes, the novel coronavirus and, subsequently, the COVID-19 pandemic, has affected all spheres of societies of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered and amplified an economic crisis that existed before the health crisis. The combination of the two crises into a double “ecological-­healthcare” and “socio-economic” crisis has had multiple consequences for everyone on the economic, social, political, and cultural level; however, it has affected social classes, workers, genders, and territories in different ways, deepening social inequalities and worsening the social conditions of disadvantaged social groups: among the most affected social groups, we find migrants.