When the World Closed Its Doors

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>When the World Closed Its Doors tells the story of how nearly every country in the world shut its borders to respond to an external threat and explains how this global shock to the system ended up transforming state border policies around the world. It details the consequences of the Covid border restrictions—couples separated for years, children blocked from reuniting with their parents, container ship workers moving essential goods trapped at sea, pregnant citizens barred from returning home—and explains why governments used their harshest containment measures on those coming from outside. The book tells human stories to show the multiple impacts that states’ increasing restrictiveness has had—economic, demographic, social, and political. And the fallout continues: Covid taught governments that borders could be closed or heavily restricted for extended periods with strong public support and minimal disruption to the everyday lives of most of their people. The temptation to do so in future crises—from pandemics to terrorist attacks to flows of desperate asylum seekers—will be irresistible. This book is an effort to ensure that lessons are learned about what worked and what didn’t from this unprecedented closure of borders—and to highlight the enormous costs that were paid by millions of people whose lives straddle those borders.</jats:p>