Immigration news

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced the department's plans on 10 April to fill Canada's growing labour shortages in skilled trade occupations. He explained that the changes were expected to result in an assessment system that will make it easier for badly needed skilled tradespersons to immigrate to Canada."Our Government recognizes that our country faces a critical shortage in certain skilled trades," said Kenney. "That's why we are taking concrete steps to address this problem at a national level."

The Australian immigration department recently announced that from 1 April 2012, nationals of the People's Republic of China traveling to Australia on student visas will not need to have a visa label in their passport. Label-free visas allow for faster processing of visa applications.

Since heightened security was established more than ten years ago following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, US P-1 visas for foreign artists and performers have become increasingly difficult to obtain. Critics have claimed that the visa obstacles are hurting the US' ability to host cultural events.

Canadian province, British Columbia, has announced a new pilot project to bring more immigrant workers to its Peace River Regional District. They hope the plan will help fix the region's severe worker shortage.The new initiative, designed to expand British Columbia's Provincial Nominee Program, will be called the Northeast Pilot Project. The British Columbia government hopes that it will attract foreign workers to jobs of all skill levels.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reported a large increase in skilled foreign worker H-1B visa applications during the first week of this year's application season. USCIS has received 25,600 petitions for H-1B visas since 2 April 2012, nearly twice as many as it received for the entire first month of last year's application period.USCIS officially began accepting H-1B applications last week for positions with a start date of 1 October 2012 or later. The visas are popular for those in IT occupations and engineering.

Pakistan's high commissioner to India Shahid Malik announced this week that India and Pakistan may soon finalise a new visa agreement in order to boost business ties between the two countries. This is the next step towards reducing trade barriers and finalizing Pakistan's Most Favoured Nation status to India.A country grants this status to another nation if it is interested in increasing trade with that country. Countries achieving most favored nation status are given specific trade advantages such as reduced tariffs on imported and exported goods. The status is enforced by the World Trade Organization.