Passport Privilege
What is passport privilege?
The American University says a passport at one level “is a bureaucratic document that signals to the international system an individual’s political belonging to a nation-state. At another level, the passport is a powerful means of communicating one’s place in the entrenched global economic, political, social, cultural, and racial hierarchy that defines our world.”
As Americans, we have heard the term “privilege” a LOT over the past year or so. Mainly in response to race. However, privilege comes in a variety of ways. One way is the idea of “passport privilege.”
Passport Privilege is the strength of your country’s passport in relation to needing a visa or not and the ease with which you can visit a foreign country.
How is this considered privilege?
This freedom of movement is often considered a given and a right to those of us lucky enough to have a high-ranking passport. Obtaining a visa can be very difficult and expensive. It also happens that most of the countries with high-ranking passports with the ability to visit 100+ countries without obtaining a visa are those wealthier countries as well where most of those traveling can afford visas.
The ability to also move freely and work remotely in other countries is a huge privilege. If you decide to move to South Africa or Mexico for a few months or a year to work remotely, you are able to do so… FREELY. And, if you ever decide to move back to the US for its unique financial opportunities, you can just as easily return.
This privilege is the biggest difference between how we perceive people migrating from developing countries and young U.S. millennials moving abroad, as Mawouna Remarque Koutonin noted in The Guardian.
Someone can move to the US with a green card and a Spanish last name and be labeled “immigrant,” while a millennial American can move to another country and be labeled “expat.”
Many travel terms become infused with racial and class assumptions. An American can obtain a work visa in Australia and work on a farm and are called “nomads",” whereas a traveling Mexican worker in the US is called a “migrant worker.” These terms are thick with assumptions and our words we choose matter.
As Amanda Machado says, “my experiences traveling and living abroad have helped me fully internalize the arbitrary and discriminatory nature of our immigration rules. It's far easier to argue for ‘playing by the rules’ when, as U.S. citizens, so many of those rules work to our advantage.”
Pre- vs Post-COVID
COVID-19 has played a HUGE role in the strength of different passports. Americans were used to being able to travel on a whim and have very few obstacles in our way when we want to visit a foreign country. However, during COVID-19, the US’s power of their passport dropped drastically due to the lack of proactiveness in regards to curbing COVID-19 and recognizing the scale and scope of the disease. We had one of the highest recorded deaths per capita, with 10 states recording more new cases than any country in the world at some points during the pandemic.
Only nine countries were allowing visitors from America without restrictions. Being banned from entering a country because one holds a certain passport is a new experience for Americans.
However, as American University says, “the US travel ban is a temporary one and is in direct response to a health crisis that the current administration has not addressed effectively. It is not, as in the case of most countries in the Global South, a commentary or evaluation of the citizens of the country based on harmful and false assumptions about their ethnic, political, religious, and cultural identities, nor is it a response to an understanding about the assumed character of America and Americans.”
Strength of different passports
According to the Henley Passport Index, Japan tops the charts with access to 191 countries. The US ranks 8th with Belgium, Greece, Norway, and the UK with access to 184 countries. Afghanistan is the lowest in terms of passport freedom with access to only 26 countries.