Immigration news

The US Congress has approved hiring 1,000 new Border Patrol Agents in the fiscal year 2005-2006.

The US Homeland Security spending Bill also included money for 250 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators and 460 detention and removal personnel.

This also brings the total number of detention beds to 20,300.

"The Bill is critical to successfully tightening enforcement along our borders. However, it is just the first step," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Friday.

The Bill has now been passed by both Houses and President Bush is expected to sign it.

In New Orleans, in the US, which is starting the long task of cleaning up after hurricane Katrina, the signs are handwritten and simply worded, such as "Workers Wanted" or "Need 50 Laborers Now!" The Los Angeles times reports.Word has gotten out and each morning day laborers — who come from Central America and Mexico by way of California, Texas and Arizona — gather on street corners in the Kenner and Metairie neighborhoods on the western edge of the city.

For thousands of immigrant women professionals who arrive in the United States as spouses on their husbands' visas, being forced to stay at home and not work is difficult and depressing. The Washington Post Service reports.

Algeria said on 9 Oct. it was stepping up efforts to fight illegal immigration, but that it wants the EU's help in doing so. The country is used as a transit area for illegal migrants en route to Europe.

In the first six months this year, police arrested more than 3,000 migrants attempting to sneak through Algeria's vast desert expanses to Morocco on their way to Spain, up from over 2,500 a year ago, paramilitary police Gendarmerie Nationale spokesman Abdurahmane Ayoub said.

The Australian Government is continuing to hold Expos in Australia and around the world in an attempt to meet their needs for skilled workers.There will be expos until November 2005 with further expos planned for 2006.Australian employers are looking for people who meet the following criteria:

Municipal staff in Halifax, Canada are recommending that the regional council endorse a proposed multi-year immigration strategy designed to attract more immigrants. The staff report contains suggestions to attract at least 2,800 new arrivals to the city each year, with a 70 percent retention rate. The report says since peaking 10 years ago at about 3,590 people, immigration levels in Nova Scotia have fallen by more than half. Traditionally, most newcomers to Canada move near larger cities with more job opportunities and greater communities from their countries of origin.