In The News

Spain Scrambles to Cope With Tide of African Migrants

Renwick Mclean March 21, 2006
As thousands of Africans gather in Mauritania, seeking eventual passage to the EU, Spain is taking an active role in preventing the migrant job-seekers from reaching its shores. Spain’s deputy prime minister paid an emergency visit to the Canary Islands to discuss controls on the record flow of African migrants reaching there from Africa’s Atlantic seaboard. Many of the Africans, who are...

Mauritania Calls for Help on EU-Bound Migrant Flood

Ahmed Mohammed March 20, 2006
More than 1000 Africans have died in the first four months of 2006, trying to reach the EU and the economic opportunity it represents. Increasing numbers of desperate migrants flee Africa in crowded and small fishing canoes, called pirogues, from Mauritania to the Canary Islands and the coast of Spain. Police intercepted a record 400 Africans in a single day, crowded into nine boats. In 2005...

Immigration Shakeup Will Bar Most Unskilled Workers From Outside EU

Alan Travis March 13, 2006
A new points-based immigration system – based on aptitude, experience, age, and shortages in the labor market – will go into effect in 2008, the biggest shakeup in British immigration law in 40 years. The plan assumes that low-skilled help can be found within the EU, and an advisory board will determine annual quotas for occupations that have a shortage of workers. According to the new system,...

America's Immigration Advantage

Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco March 6, 2006
Europe and the US have different perspectives on immigration and therefore different problems, according to immigration scholar Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco. Immigrants typically receive good educations on both sides of the Atlantic, but immigrants in Europe face intense discrimination in the labor market. European immigration is driven by asylum-seeking and marriage, so ethnic groups tend to...

Hard Work, Furtive Living: Illegal Immigrants in Japan

Sharon Noguchi March 2, 2006
As Japan confronts challenges of a low birth rate, an aging population, and a shrinking labor pool, Sharon Noguchi describes the country’s newfound reliance on illegal workers who are employed in low-wage jobs and unprotected from exploitation. Immigrants from China, Latin America and South Asia seek jobs with employers willing to risk legal punishments in order to hire workers at lower wages....

US Approves Visa for Indian Scientist

Shankar Vedantam February 27, 2006
Since the 2001 terrorist attacks the US has implemented a stricter, more time-consuming visa policy citing concerns for national security., However, the recent denial of a visa to Goverdhan Mehta, an Indian scientist who is the president of the International Council for Science, has offered proof that this system remains far from perfect. In a case that caused furor in India just days before a...

Immigration’s Role Often Overlooked in Global Economy

Leif Brottem February 21, 2006
The flow of immigrants from the global south to North America and Europe in search of work is often overshadowed by the flow of goods, capital and information. The financial support immigrants provide to developing countries once they settle elsewhere is 50 percent greater than the development aid to those same countries from all other sources. Increasingly, however, the US and the EU are...