Immigration news

The United States has recently clarified that it will grant US visit visas to Indian nationals who have passports with a validity period of 20 years. The Indian media had reported previously that the US would not grant visas to passports that were valid for periods of 20 years. It was also reported that Indian nationals who had US visas in their 20-year passports would be refused entry into the US.

According to reports, Indian nationals had begun to exchange their 20-year passports for 10-year passports.

The regulation on US H-1B visas has moved through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and has gone to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for signature. This means that clear information on the promised 20,000 additional H-1B visas for 2005 should be available soon. The regulation could be published in the Federal Register in the next few days.

Immigrants from new EU countries have boosted Britain's economy and Britons should welcome new immigrants to the UK, the European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said on 28 April.

Immigration, legal and illegal, has been a key theme for all major political parties in the campaign for the UK election on May 5, with tabloid newspapers playing on fears that the country is being overrun by benefit-seeking foreigners.

Canada's future is dependent on immigration, says Canada's Minister for Citizenship and Immigration. Joe Volpe spoke in defence of the country's new Internationally Trained Workers Initiative in a speech on 28 April.

Volpe pointed out that Canada's birth rate is among the lowest in the western world, and its unemployment rate continues to fall. This means that Canada must recruit new immigrants to Canada.

Limits on H-1B visas should be removed to allow more skilled foreign citizens to work at US companies if the US wants to remain a leader in technology, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said on 27 April.

Gates said Microsoft is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the United States, and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only making the situation worse.

But he reserved his sharpest criticism for the visa caps, which he called "almost a case of a centrally controlled economy."

Thousands of eastern Europeans headed to the UK last year by plane and coach, seeking a better future since their countries joined the European Union on 1 May. A year on, the BBC takes a look at whether their hopes have been fulfilled.

They have come from the eight former communist states of Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

With enlargement, the UK has lifted its labour restrictions on workers from these countries. New arrivals must simply register with the UK's Home Office.