Immigration news

Canadian immigration minister Chris Alexander has announced that Canada will introduce its new 'active recruitment' immigration system in January 2015. It will be known as 'Express Entry' and will be similar to Australia's SkillSelect skilled immigration system.

Mr Alexander's predecessor Jason Kenney began work on the new system in 2012. It has been known as the Expression of Interest system until now. Mr Alexander says that he believes that the new system will be 'a game changer' which will 'revolutionize the way we attract skilled immigrants, and get them working here faster'.

The UK's shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has called on the Coalition government to immediately remove students from the official migration statistics. Ms Cooper said that including all migrants in the immigration statistics was 'deeply damaging to our economy'.

During a wide-ranging speech on immigration at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning London think tank, Ms Cooper said that the current government's treatment of the immigration figures is not in Britain's interests.

Yet another parliamentary committee has criticised the UK's Coalition government for its rhetoric on immigration.

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee published a report on International Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students on 11th April 2014 which warns that the number of STEM students studying in the UK has fallen considerably since 2010, when the UK's current Coalition government came to power.

Jeb Bush, the brother of George W Bush, who is seen as a frontrunner to be the Republican candidate for the presidency in 2016, has called on the Republicans to abandon their 'harsh political rhetoric' on illegal immigration and said that illegal immigration is 'not a felony'.

Mr Bush's words have been seen as the opening shot in his campaign to become president in 2016. They are an indication that, if he stands for President, the Republican Party will drop its opposition to the introduction of an amnesty for illegal immigrants in the US.

The UK's Office for National Statistics says that it underestimated the true extent of immigration from Eastern Europe between 2001 and 2011 by about 350,000. It says that the error occurred because the ONS estimate was based on misleading data from the International Passenger Survey.

The ONS has recently completed a review of immigration from the EU particularly after 2004 when eight new nations joined the European Union. It found that the statistics only used data from major airports rather than from all airports in the UK.

On Sunday 30th March, the celebrity chef Nigella Lawson boarded a plane for a holiday in the US. However, the US immigration authorities informed British Airways that Ms Lawson would not be allowed entry to the US and she was subsequently asked to leave the plane.

It is reported that US immigration intended to deny her entry to the US to Ms Lawson because of a public admission that she had taken cocaine. Ms Lawson admitted cocaine use while giving evidence in the trial of two former employees last year.