Immigration news

Unite the Union, Britain's biggest worker's union, has urged UK immigration to drop reforms of Tier 5 domestic worker visas that were announced by the Home Office on 29 February. They claim that such changes will disadvantage migrant domestic workers as they may become trapped working for abusive employers.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting fiscal year 2013 H-1B visa applications on Monday 2 April 2012 for employment with a start date of 1 October 2012 or later. Current immigration law allows for a total of 85,000 new H-1B visas to be made available each government fiscal year. This number includes 65,000 new H-1B visas issued for overseas workers in professional or specialty occupation positions, and an additional 20,000 visas available for those with an advanced degree from a US academic institution.

US manufacturers are experiencing a shortage of skilled American factory workers and, in turn, have been going abroad to find workers to immigrate to the US.Following a recent increase in factory business, there has been a growing demand for machinists, tool and die makers, computer-controlled machine programmers and operators."These jobs are the backbone of manufacturing," said Gardner Carrick, senior director with the Manufacturing Institute. "These are good quality middle-class jobs that Americans should be training for."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has claimed that there are too many immigrants in France and the system for integrating them is "working worse and worse".During a recent television debate on 6 March, Sarkozy said there were "too many foreigners in France" and defended his plan to almost halve the number of new immigrants if re-elected next month. The president said while immigration could be beneficial for France, it also needed to be restricted further with tougher requirements for residency.

UK Immigration Minister Damian Green claimed this week that the UK remains open to skilled immigrants but the country has become "addicted" to hiring foreign workers."Like all addictions, it takes some time to wean people off but it's good for you to be weaned off an addiction and it will be good for business in the long run if we have more an instinct that's 'let's find a British worker and, if necessary, let's train a British worker," said Green.Green called on UK businesses to prioritise hiring or training local staff instead of bringing in foreign-born workers.

Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced 5 March that the government was tightening spousal sponsorship rules in an ongoing effort to deter people from undertaking marriages of convenience to come to Canada.