Immigration news

A new report has found that the US, the UK and Australia are the three preferred destinations for professionals around the world seeking to relocate for work. The US was the top destination last year too. The UK has risen to take second place from Australia, which is third.

The survey was carried out by the ESCP Europe business school on behalf of the Hydrogen recruitment company. It is the fourth annual survey prepared for Hydrogen. ESCP questioned over 2,000 professional people who had relocated worldwide. They worked in a range of fields; technology, finance, life sciences, oil and gas and legal.

Australian immigration minister Brendan O'Connor has announced that Australia will keep its immigration target for 2013/14 at 190,000; the same number as for the previous year. Of these 128,500 permanent resident visas will go to skilled migrants and 60,885 to family members. There will also be 565 places for 'special eligibility migrants' who are former permanent residents who have close ties with Australia.

Do you want to move to Canada? A recent poll showed that Canada is the third most popular migration destination in the world after the USA and the UK. 42m people told the GALLUP polling company that they would like to settle there. And Canada is actively encouraging skilled workers from around the world to do so.

Canada's Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), the country's main immigration programme for skilled workers, reopened on 4th May 2013. The new FSWP will favour younger applicants. Some 55,000 permanent resident visas will be allocated in the next year. Among these will be 5,000 visas for workers who have experience in one of 24 'eligible occupations'.

Under the new FSWP, skilled workers who wish to emigrate to Canada can apply for a Canadian permanent resident visa if they fall into one of three categories;

The US Senate has begun to discuss the comprehensive immigration reform law that they will vote on later this year. Before the vote, various Senate committees will examine the law and propose amendments to it.

The law has already been discussed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and its Homeland Security Committee. The debates have been bad-tempered at times and, as usual, it is the proposal that the act should create a 'pathway to citizenship' for the estimated 11m illegal immigrants currently resident in the US that has created the most heat.

A study carried out by researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) shows that immigrants in the UK do not seem to commit more crimes than the native population. Some UK newspapers have stated that immigrants are responsible for a considerable proportion of crime. The LSE survey found that there was usually no statistical basis for these claims.