The Covid‐19 Pandemic and Pre‐Existing Migration Infrastructures: Differentiated Impacts on Nepali Migrants in Japan

ABSTRACT The COVID‐19 pandemic disproportionately affected international migrants worldwide. However, not all international migrants were uniformly impacted. While much of the literature has focused on the pandemic's effects on migrants relative to citizens, the impacts faced by different groups of migrants remain less understood. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with various groups of Nepali migrants in Japan—including students, cooks and migrentrepreneurs—we examine how these different groups of migrants were affected during the pandemic and how these effects intersected with pre‐existing migration infrastructures. We found that students and cooks faced more severe socio‐economic challenges during the pandemic compared to migrant entrepreneurs given their varied social networks, pre‐pandemic economic status and linguistic abilities. Students and cooks' economic and social vulnerabilities were further exacerbated by an unfavourable visa regime and exploitative migration infrastructure that governs transnational student and labour mobility. We also reveal instances where some migrant entrepreneurs engaged in pandemic profiteering by taking advantage of government support, pre‐existing vulnerability and exploiting their own employees.