Immigration News: July, 2003 - Volume #10

THE AMERICAS

DHS: 9/11 Aftermath, Visas
The Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP), headed by commissioner Robert C. Bonner, brings together the Customs Service

Sanctions, Border, Refugees
There are five to six million unauthorized foreigners among the 15 to 16 million foreign-born workers in the US labor force.

Congress: Legalization, Naturalization
The House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims is being chaired by John Hostettler (R-Indiana)

Census, Licenses, Education
The US had 288.4 million residents in July 2002. The US population was 70.1 percent non-Hispanic white; 12.7 percent Hispanic (38.8 million)

Mexico: Migrants, Babies, Labor
Mexico has legislative elections on July 6, 2003, and President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN) is expected to lose seats in the 500-seat Chamber of Deputes

Labor, H-1B, L-1, H-2B, Unions
The US unemployment rate was six percent in April 2003; California's rate was 6.7 percent.

Latin America
Under the so-called "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach US land are allowed to stay as immigrants, while those intercepted at sea are returned to Cuba.

ASIA

China: Migrants and SARS, Inequality
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak re-focused attention on China's 100 million plus migrant workers

Southeast Asia: SARS, Countries
Thailand in May 2003 announced that agreements had been reached with Laos and Cambodia to mange labor migration

Japan, Korea
Japan is facing one of the industrial world's toughest demographic challenges

South Asia
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association on July 4, 1995 pledged to remove children younger than 14 from factory floors.

Iraq and Refugees
Before the war against Iraq began, the US created a 60-member Disaster Assistance Response Team, the largest of its kind in US history

EUROPE

EU: Enlargement, Migrants
The January-June 2003 president of the EU, Prime Minister Costas Simitis of Greece, renewed the call for a common EU immigration policy

UK: Asylum, Sanctions, Migrants
Home Secretary David Blunkett has proposed a national identity or "entitlement" card for all adults as part of a package of measures to tackle illegal working by migrants.

Germany, Austria
On May 9, 2003, the German Parliament once again approved the immigration bill that was originally approved in 2002

France, Benelux
France in April 2003 allowed Muslims to elect their first council to represent the five million Muslims, seven percent of the population.

Northern Europe
The Nordic countries are changing, in part because immigration is making them less homogeneous and thus more willing to roll back their defining feature, the welfare state.

Southern Europe
Spain has about 39 million residents, almost 11 percent of the European Union's population and 10 percent of its GDP

Eastern Europe
Over a quarter of the residents of the town of Simiatycze in eastern Poland have worked in Brussels over the past decade

OTHER

Australia, New Zealand
One in 16 doctors working in Australia - 3,000 - is a foreigner in the country on a short-term working visa

Israel: Immigration, Migrants
Israel received 35,168 immigrants in 2002, but only 7,692 in the first five months of 2003. In 2001, there were 44,633 new arrivals in Israel.

Middle East
On May 12, 2003, several compounds housing expatriate workers were bombed, killing 34, but most of the 40,000 Americans and 30,000 Britons pledged to stay.

Africa
Under the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad), G-8 leaders promised to increase aid by $6 billion a year if African countries improved their economic and political governance.

Global Trends
Globalization, the increased connectedness of people despite national borders, is reflected in increased trade and capital flows. The industrial democracies