Hidden in Plain Sight: “Neutral” Enclosures for High‐Skilled Immigrants During COVID‐191

Abstract

Politicians and mainstream media in the EU, UK, and US regularly emphasize the need for highly skilled migrants, but, over the last few decades, the terms and conditions for these highly skilled migrants have changed drastically. As part of the neoliberal migrant control regime, highly skilled migrants are brought to countries under very restrictive conditions. They work and contribute taxes but have few to no political rights. Based on data on highly skilled Indian migrants in the US during the pandemic, we argue that highly skilled “nonimmigrants” are placed within a thicket of laws and policies that act as enclosures, but these seemingly neutral enclosures remain “hidden in plain sight” because of the silence about their near‐indentured life conditions.