Immigration news

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has released its International Migration Outlook for 2013. The report shows that the level of immigration in OECD countries is rising but remains lower than it was before the economic crisis of 2007. Permanent immigration to OECD countries rose by 2% in 2011 and by a further 2% in 2012. It also finds that the number of international students continues to rise. There were over 2.6m such students in 2010.

The UK government has backtracked on a major policy initiative designed to combat illegal immigration. In March, the UK's prime minister, David Cameron, announced that all landlords were to be required to check the immigration status of all tenants before allowing them to rent flats. They would only be legally allowed to let to tenants with permission to be in the UK. Any landlord found not to have carried out the test would be liable for a hefty fine, Mr Cameron said.

The Quebec Immigrant Investor Program (QIIP) is tentatively scheduled to reopen on 1st August 2013. If it does, then Quebec will accept 'a limited number of applications' before closing the program again so, if you are interested, it would be well to begin to prepare your application now.

Theresa May, the UK's Home Secretary and a senior figure in the UK's Conservative Party, has written to Conservative Party members to claim that the UK's coalition government is 'getting immigration under control'. Theresa May, a Conservative member of parliament and the UK's current Home Secretary (the minister with responsibility for immigration and crime) has sent an email to Party members claiming 'we've cut immigration by more than a third since 2010'.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK, delivered a speech on 10th June 2013 saying that it was wrong to belittle those with legitimate concerns about immigration. Mr Cameron gave a speech in the southern country of Essex shortly before the UK hosts the latest summit of the leaders of the G8; the eight wealthiest countries on earth The US, Germany, Japan, Italy, France, the UK, Canada and Russia.

The G8 summit will be held in Northern Ireland at the Lough Erne Golf Resort on the 17th and 18th of June. A range of subjects will be discussed at the summit including

The Speaker of the UK's House of Commons, John Bercow, has angered Conservative MPs by giving a speech in Romania in which he said that the UK had benefited because of immigration from the European Union. The Conservatives say that the speaker, whose job it is to control debates in the House of Commons, should always remain neutral and never offer his opinions on any subject for fear of seeming to favour one party's position over another.