Immigration news

Germany's commissioner for integration says passage of a law requiring immigrants to learn the German language and customs is her greatest achievement.

In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Marieluise Beck said she would have liked the 2004 Immigration Act to go farther than it did in easing settlement in Germany for highly skilled workers, the self-employed and foreign students.

"With the new immigration law, we've cleared the way for Germany to welcome new migrants and to rise to the challenges of integration," Beck said.

As workpermit.com reported on 15 August 2005, the US's annual H-1B visa limit for the 2006 fiscal year has been met. However, we would like to remind you that graduates of U.S. masters degree or above programs still qualify for some remaining numbers for both fiscal year 2005 and 2006.

Within the last week, two US states along the border with Mexico - Arizona and New Mexico - have declared states of emergency due to soaring violence and human and drug smuggling connected to illegal immigration.US Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has pledged to rush federal aid as soon as possible and come up with a plan to stem the tide.But California farmers are already hard pressed to find enough labour to pick their crops after California's own borders with Mexico were largely sealed off some time ago, and could face even greater shortages if Chertoff holds true to his pledge.

Immigration has come under political debate in New Zealand. New Zealand First says that the Labour and National Party's immigration policies have not ended skill shortages, and are keeping New Zealander's wages low. The First party says young people are leaving the country in search of higher wages, and unskilled workers immigrating to New Zealand are replacing them.

New Zealand First would drop the corporate tax rate from 33c to 30c in the dollar and raise the minimum wage from $9.50 an hour to $12.

Australian Immigration officials are facing possible legal action after being accused of contributing to the death of an elderly Syrian woman seeking to extend a visitor visa due to ill health. While visiting Australia from Lebanon, she had become increasingly frail and suffered from anaemia, diabetes and arthritis. Her family had hoped to extend her visitor visa, saying that she was too frail to travel home.

Immigration of skilled workers is 10 times more valuable to the economy than immigration of unskilled workers, new statistical research shows.

While unskilled immigrants produce many benefits for better-off residents in a country, they tend to reduce the wages the un-skilled native population can earn. They also tend to increase inequality and barely raise the return on capital.