**6. Conclusions**

When states have continued to prioritise deportation even in the face of a material threat that has affected the world to the extent that COVID-19 has, the securitisation of migration and deportation has clearly been weighted as a more pronounced threat to national security. Despite the global pandemic, 'borders are not changing; instead, their violence appears in different forms and is exposed on the same "disposable bodies"' (Ozguc in Sterling-Folker et al. 2021, p. 16). National security resources were already stretched, and ye<sup>t</sup> the policing, incarceration and deportation of migrants was not merely unabated but escalated during the COVID-19 period. Once detained and eventually deported, migrants endured significant isolation and stigmatization, exacerbated by the COVID-19 context. Returned deportees faced even more hurdles on their arrival. Governments too have struggled with providing detainees with the same level of certainty of deportation that they would have received ordinarily, holding deportees in detention for longer than usual, infrequently left 'out of sight and out of mind'.

Ultimately, deportation of the 'crimmigrant other' did continue, despite otherwise closed borders. When faced with two simultaneous threats to national security, the material public health threat of COVID-19 and the constructed threat of crime from criminal non-citizens, Australia and New Zealand chose to continue and extend detention and deportation practices—thereby prioritising the securitised perceived threat over the material threat that is in fact causing harm to the community.

What this says about states' threat perceptions is that they reinforced by their own securitisation, rather than tangible harm. Therefore, once the global pandemic has subsided, we are likely to see the securitisation of migration continue in detention and deportation practices, exacerbated rather than restricted by the events of COVID-19.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
