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President Barack Obama is preparing to use his executive powers as President to reform the US immigration system, because of the inability of Congress to pass immigration reform legislation. This is despite the fact that both main political parties the Democrats and Republicans agree that change is necessary.
A report written by an Australian academic states that there have been 400,000 jobs created in the Australian economy since 2011 and that migrants who have arrived in the country since that year have taken 380,000 of them; 95% of the total.
The report, Immigration and Unemployment in 2014, is written by Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy of Monash University in Melbourne. Dr Birrell is a long-standing critic of Australia's immigration policy which he says has resulted in a lack of jobs for Australian citizens and residents, particularly the young.
The UK government is considering changes to the tax system which could cost low-paid migrant workers thousands of pounds a year. The changes could mean that some will find it less attractive to come and work in the UK.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is said to be planning to prevent temporary and seasonal workers from claiming their tax-free personal allowance. This would mean that they would pay tax on all their income.
The latest figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics show that the number of foreign-born workers in the UK labour force grew by 170,000 between April and June this year. The number of UK-born workers rose by only 40,000.
The figures were released on 13th August. They show that the total number of workers in the UK's work force climbed to 30,537,000 from 30,431,000 between April and June. Of these, 25,813,000 were British-born and 4,724,000 were foreign-born.
The Canadian immigration minister Chris Alexander has welcomed the first immigrant to come to Canada under the Start-Up visa for entrepreneurs. Alex Zadorozhnyi is an IT entrepreneur from Ukraine. He and his business partner have launched Zeetl Inc, a tech start-up with assistance from Canadian venture capitalists.
An investigation by a UK newspaper has made the claim that many of the migrant workers who are building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar live in squalid conditions and many are not being paid.
The Guardian report says that some migrant workers claim not to have been paid for over a year. According to the report they are living in desperate conditions. Others are apparently working for less than US$1 per day.
The Qatari government has expressed 'dismay' at the allegations.