• Method developed for including migration uncertainty in population projections

    Statisticians have developed the first model for projecting population that factors in the vagaries of migration, a slippery issue that has bedeviled demographers for decades. Their work also provides population projections for all countries worldwide — and challenges the existing predictions for some, particularly the United States and Germany.

  • Gazans fear being used as human shields as Hamas builds tunnels under homes

    Palestinians in the Gaza Strip increasingly fear that the ongoing construction of Hamas tunnels in residential areas means that their lives will be in danger if a future war breaks out between the terrorist group and Israel. While Israel destroyed 32 terror tunnels during the 2014 war, Israeli officials have been warning for some time that Hamas has rebuilt much of its underground infrastructure.

  • Federal border officials in El Paso accused of coercion, abuse

    By Julián Aguilar

    Federal officials stationed on the Texas-Mexico border called legal border crossers “whores” and criminals and subjected them to unwarranted searches and coercion, according to a complaint a civil liberties group submitted to the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general Tuesday.

  • Giving Turks visa-free access to EU would be “storing gasoline next to the fire”: Ex-MI6 chief

    Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, has said that for the EU to offer visa-free access to the EU zone to millions of Turks would be like “storing gasoline next to the fire.” He said that the impact of mass migration is “eating away at the willingness of EU states to act together.” He added that this is making the EU “impotent in the face of the most serious social and humanitarian problem” it has had to face. He also said that the failure by the “present configuration of twenty-eight vastly differing national interests” to meet the challenge of migration may well be an indication that the EU has outlived its historical role.

  • Number of suspected terrorist entering Germany as refugees doubles

    The German federal police agency, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), said it is investigating the possible arrival of forty Islamist militants among more than 1.1 million refugees who have entered the country during since the beginning of 2015. The BKA said it had received 369 reports of possible extremists and found that forty of the cases required more investigation. This is an increase relative to numbers the BKA released in January, when eighteen investigations were found to be warranted after 213 warnings had been received.

  • CBP MSC vehicle contracts to Telephonic appear problematic

    By Robert Lee Maril

    According to federal government documents, problematic contract inconsistencies predominate in yet another CBP surveillance technology program. The CBP contract in question calls for the production of Multiple Surveillance Capability (MSC) vehicles. Unfortunately, the unintended consequences of these documented problematic delays in the CBP and Office of Technology Innovation and Assessment (OTIA) acquisition process with Telephonics MSC vehicle contracts have serious ramifications. Equally troubling is that CBP MSC contract delays from 2010 to 2015 mirror SBInet delays from 2006 to 2011. These contract delays with Telephonics MSC vehicles, a surveillance technology already in place in other countries, continues to create a U.S.-Mexican border far less secure or safe than it should or has to be.

  • Germany, Italy strongly oppose Austria’s border fence scheme

    Germany and Italy on Thursday expressed strong objections to what the leaders of the two countries described as the “unjustified” proposal from Austria to erect a fence at Austria’s alpine border with Italy to stem the flow of migrants into the country. Austrian presidential candidate compared the leaders of Germany and Italy to migrant smugglers bringing people over the Mediterranean in shoddy, overcrowded boats.

  • EU backs visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to EU zone

    The European Commission has recommended visa-free travel in Europe for Turkish citizens. Turkey still has to meet some of the seventy-two conditions set by the EU. The deal must be approved by the parliaments of all of the EU twenty-eight member states before the 30 June deadline. The lifting of visa requirements for Turkey’s eighty million citizens has been a subject of intense debate among EU member states. Turkey threatened that if the EU and its member states failed to approve the visa deal, Turkey would withdrew from the refugee agreement it had reached with the EU in March.

  • EU cannot identify, track visa overstays

    Critics of the plan to give Turkish citizen visa-free access to the EU zone say the measure could allow these travelers to disappear because the European Union does not have a system to detect visitors who overstay their visas. The critics say that the problem is compounded by plans to grant vis-free travel to the fifty-two million people from Ukraine, Kosovo, and Georgia. In normal times, visa overstays account for the majority of illegal migrants in Europe.

  • Denmark extends checks along Danish-German border

    Denmark has extended until 2 June the checks along its border with Germany. The government described the extension as meant to have a “preventive effect.” Danish police on 4 January started to do spot checks at some of the country’s fifteen border crossings with Germany. The measure was supposed to be temporary, but has been extended five times now. The Danish decision followed the decision by Sweden to begin requiring rail, bus, and ferry companies to verify the identities of people travelling from Denmark.

  • Israeli anti-tunnel tech could thwart U.S.-Mexico smugglers

    Smugglers of drugs and illegal migrants using tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border may want to keep an eye on Israel. The U.S. government is cosponsoring the tunnel-detection technology now being developed by Israeli engineers. This latest innovation hit world headlines upon the announcement that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) uncovered a two-kilometer-long, concrete-lined tunnel on its Gaza border.

  • Norway to offer asylum seekers money to leave the country

    Norway is offering people who seek asylum in Norway a £840 “bonus” in exchange for leaving the country voluntarily. The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) said the measure is a cheaper alternative when compared to paying for refugees upkeep in the country’s immigration centers.

  • Tighter U.S.-Mexico border enforcement has backfired: Study

    From 1986 to 2010, the United States spent $35 billion on border enforcement, but the net rate of undocumented population growth doubled. The rapid escalation of border enforcement over the past three decades has backfired as a strategy to control undocumented immigration between Mexico and the United States, according to new research that suggests further militarization of the border is a waste of money.

  • Muslim family's Swiss citizenship process halted after sons refused to shake hands with female teachers

    The Swiss immigration authorities have halted the citizenship process of a Muslim family after the family’s two teenage sons refused to shake hands with their female teachers. The refusal triggered an intense national debate over religious freedom in Switzerland. In Switzerland it is customary for pupils to shake teachers’ hands at the beginning of class.

  • Europe is not the solution to the plight of millions of refugees: Helmut Kohl

    Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl has raised concerns about the number of refugees entering Europe. Kohl, who led Germany during the end of the cold war and the reunification of the country, and who was a strong was for greater integration of Europe, said the refugees issue is tied to the EU’s peace and freedom, and that the solution to the refugees’ plight is not in Europe.