• Religious prejudice, not racism, drives intolerance toward asylum seekers in Australia

    Negative attitudes among Australian voters toward asylum seekers are driven by religious bigotry more than by racism or economic anxieties, according to a new study. But this does not translate to strong support for current hardline policies. Although support for these policies is widespread, a broad spectrum of the community wants something more humane, while keeping control of Australia’s borders.

  • New rule permits STEM graduates to stay in U.S. for 36 months

    A new rule published by DHS this week allows foreign students in science and technology to extend their stay in the United States under the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program. The new rule will go into effect in May, and it will allow STEM graduates to stay and work in the United States for up to thirty-six months.

  • State-level immigration policies should be subject of cost-benefit analysis

    While immigration policy has been the purview of the U.S. federal government, nearly all states have taken a more-active role on the issue of unauthorized immigration in the past fifteen years through actions such as making drivers licenses available regardless of immigration status and requiring employers to verify eligibility to work, according to a new study. States, however, rarely examine the costs and benefits of such policies before enacting them, suggesting the need for a comprehensive tool to help state policymakers assess the full range of costs and benefits of immigration policies before they are adopted.

  • Mexican president compares Trump's “strident” rhetoric to Hitler and Mussolini

    Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto has said that comments by Donald Trump have damaged U.S.-Mexico relationships, and compared Trump’s “strident” tone to those of fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In his most direct comments so far on Trump’s assertions, Peña Nieto completely rejected the idea that Mexico would cover the cost of Trump’s proposed border wall.

  • Amnesty slams EU-Turkey refugee deal

    The EU and Turkey are about to reach a deal over the fate of more than a million refugees which have made it to Europe in the last eighteen months. The deal will be based on “one stays, one goes” principle: Turkey has agreed in principle to take back one refugee for every refugee the EU countries agree to allow to stay in Europe. Amnesty International “shows an alarmingly short-sighted and inhumane attitude to handling this crisis.”

  • The real cost of CBP’s failed SBInet is $1.389 billion

    Since its approval by Congress in 2006, the exact cost to taxpayers of the Secure Border Initiative network (SBInet) has remained difficult to substantiate. The real cost to date of the failed SBInet program , a cost which excludes the SBInet impact upon both federal agents, border residents, and border crossers, far exceeds the commonly used estimate of $1 billion. The quality, utility, and efficiency of CBP’s failed SBInet program should be judged, like any other federal program, by its real cost to the public. According to government data, that cost to date is $1.389 billion.

  • Mexico, “emphatically and categorically,” says it would not pay for border wall

    The Mexican government has made its first public response to Donald Trump’s assertions that he would not only build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but also make Mexico pay for it. “I say it emphatically and categorically: Mexico, under no circumstance, is going to pay for the wall that Mr. Trump is proposing,” the Mexican treasury secretary, Luis Videgaray, said late on Wednesday.

  • U.K. national security imperiled by delays in e-Border project

    British lawmakers warned that national security could be imperiled by the protracted hold-ups in implementing a £1.1 billion system of border checks. The lawmakers accused the Home Office of unwarranted confidence over the introduction of the e-Borders program, due to become fully operational in 2019, eight years later than originally planned. Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee told the Home Office to “get its house in order now” over the project.

  • Russia, Syria triggered refugee crisis to destabilize Europe: NATO commander

    General Phil Breedlove, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander for Europe and head of the U.S. European Command, said Russia and Syria are indiscriminately bombing Syrian civilians to drive the refugee crisis and “weaponize migration.”He said that weapons such as barrel bombs, widely used by the Assad regime against Sunni civilian population, have no military value, and are used solely to terrorize those living in rebel-held territories. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the destruction formed part of a deliberate strategy by Russia and the Assad regime to “get them on the road” and “make them a problem for someone else.”

  • ISIS “spreading like cancer” among refugees: NATO commander

    General Philip Breedlove, NATO’s top commander, on Tuesday told a congressional panel that refugees from the Middle East and north Africa are “masking the movement” of terrorists and criminals. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Breedlove said that ISIS is “spreading like a cancer” among refugees. The group’s members are “taking advantage of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations and our own,” he said.

  • Candidates' plans to change controversial H-1B guest worker program highlight need for an overhaul

    Since its inception in 1990, the H-1B guest worker program that allows employers to bring in high-skilled foreign workers on six-year visas has been steeped in controversy. Critics accuse it of depressing wages and outsourcing American jobs, while advocates call it an essential source of the best and brightest talent. The H-1B program is an important program that serves as a bridge to permanent immigration for talented foreign workers. It should be used to recruit truly specialized workers from abroad when the labor conditions are tight and a qualified American can’t be found. But no American worker should ever be displaced by an H-1B worker – that was never the program’s intent – and this practice should be ended.

  • UN warns of imminent humanitarian crisis in Greece

    Europe faces an imminent humanitarian crisis, largely of its own making, following a rapid build-up of people in already over-stretched Greece, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, warned. “With governments not working together despite having already reached agreements in a number of areas, and country after country imposing new border restrictions, inconsistent practices are causing unnecessary suffering and risk being at variance with EU and international law standards,” UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards told a press briefing in Geneva.

  • Swiss voters reject automatic deportation of foreigners who committed crimes

    Swiss voters, in a Saturday referendum, rejected a proposal by a nationalist party automatically to deport foreigners who commit even low-level offenses such as traffic violations. Public opinion indicated a tight vote, but the measure was easily defeated by a margin of 58.9 percent to 41.1 percent. EU leaders welcomed the referendum result.

  • Two former Mexican presidents: Trump “like Hitler” in stirring hatred along ethnic lines

    Two former presidents of Mexico, Felipe Calderon and Vicente Fox, said Donald Trump was stirring up hate along ethnic lines in a manner similar to that of Hitler. In Twitter message to his followers ahead of Super Tuesday vote, Trump quoted the words of Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

  • Mexicans worry Trump’s rhetoric will poison U.S.-Mexico relations

    Donald Trump’s pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border – and make Mexico pay for it – has elicited pointed criticism from two former Mexican presidents, Felipe Calderon and Vicente Fox. Even if the border wall is never built, leading politicians and academics in Mexico worry that Trump’s comments will lead to harsher U.S. border policy and disrupt the process of growing economic and political ties between the two countries, a process which began two decades ago with the NAFTA agreement.