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Two Republican members of the House of Representatives have endorsed a comprehensive immigration reform act that would radically overhaul the US immigration system. The Act is broadly speaking the same as a bill of the same name already passed by the Senate. The Senate's version of The Act was drafted by a bipartisan group of eight senators known as the Gang of Eight.
The latest figures show that 35,472 Indians working in the US with H-1B visas were issued with US permanent resident visas (better known as green cards) in 2012. This is the highest ever number in a single year and six times higher than the figure for 2011 when only around 6,000 Indian H-1B holders got green cards.
H-1B visas are temporary work visas which can be granted to foreign graduates (or people with skills and experience amounting to 'graduate equivalence') to work in 'a specialty occupation' in the US. Many H-1B holders work in IT.
Bill Shorten, the new leader of the Australian Labor Party has told an Australian television audience that Australia should increase the number of immigrants it admits each year.
Mr Shorten became leader after winning a ballot of Labor Party members on 10th October. The previous Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, resigned after leading Labor to a defeat in the Australian general election on September 7th.
On 28th October 2013, immigration minister Chris Alexander announced Canada's immigration plan for 2014. Mr Alexander announced that he intended to keep total immigration at between 240 and 265,000. Of these, 63% or 164,500 will be economic migrants. 68,000 will be admitted under the family stream and 28,400 will be admitted under the humanitarian stream.
Mr Alexander announced that two visa programmes will be significantly expanded; the Canadian Experience Class and the Provincial Nominee Program.
The UK's Home Office has announced that it will not require visa applicants from six 'high risk countries' to pay security bonds when they apply for visas. A spokesman said ''The Government has been considering whether we pilot a bond scheme that would deter people from overstaying their visa. We have decided not to proceed.'
The Indian IT outsourcing giant Infosys has agreed to pay $34m in settlement of a case brought against it by the US Department of State, US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Homeland Security.
Infosys faced allegations that it had abused the US visa system by employing Indian workers on US contracts who had travelled to the US on B-1 business visas rather than on H-1B visas or L-1 visas. The US government says that this was an abuse of the visa system.