US Immigration News

A growing number of US governors are complaining about illegal immigrants pouring into their states, pushing the Bush administration and Congress for action.

Republicans and Democrats alike on Sunday said they planned to bring the concerns to President Bush in private meetings this week, bringing a front-line security worry of a different order than the latest Washington obsessions on ports and eavesdropping.

Some lawyers and educators are calling for changes in U.S. immigration policies. They say current rules are too restrictive and discourage talented people from around the world from coming to the United States to study, teach and work. They worry that many of them will go to other countries instead, diminishing the United States' ability to compete in many fields.

Migrant workers in the US do the jobs that Americans will not do, but they are vulnerable to bigots and big business, as The Guardian reports.Half past seven on Tuesday morning and on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard in Queens, New York, around 20 Sikh men stamp the cold out of their feet. Brickworkers, builders and unskilled labourers all wait at the intersection for a car to stop and offer work. But the snow on the ground is an ill omen. Construction work is scarce when the weather is this bad. So they wait.

A shortage of nurses throughout the US state of Florida isn't showing any signs of easing despite the best plans by hospitals to fill vacancies, newly released statistics show.

The Florida Hospital Association's annual nurse staffing survey has found the registered nurse vacancy rate rose slightly to 8.5 percent last year in Florida hospitals, a bump up from an 8.2 percent vacancy rate the year before.

Latin American diplomats lobbied Washington this week against a tough immigration plan that would include a large wall along the Mexico-U.S. border to keep out illegal immigrants.

Foreign ministers from 11 Latin American countries gathered in the seaside resort city of Cartagena, where they decided to send a group to Washington next week to identify key U.S. lawmakers on the immigration debate, Salvadoran Foreign Minister Francisco Lainez announced.

President Bush's recent call for more visas for skilled foreign workers increases the likelihood that relief is on the way for U.S. technology firms that say they are struggling to fill key positions.