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The Gang of Eight, a group of eight senators, four Republicans and four Democrats, who have been working on proposals for a law that would radically overhaul the US immigration system since January, have released their draft Act of Congress, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. It is 844 pages long and contains proposals to reform every area of the system.
The so called 'Gang of Eight' has released details of the draft immigration reform bill it has been working on since January. The Gang of Eight are eight senators, four Democrat and four Republican, who have agreed to cooperate to draft a compromise bill which will reform the US immigration system which politicians on both sides agree is 'broken'.
A summary of the bill was released on Tuesday 16th April 2013. Last week, two of the Gang, Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Lindsay Graham had indicated that a deal might be close.
The Canadian government's main skilled immigration programme, the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), will re-open on May 4th 2013. It was closed down temporarily by Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney in June 2012. At the time, Mr Kenney said he would reform the system and re-open it in January 2013. He later announced that this date would be delayed until May 2013.
The UK's immigration authorities have announced a new scheme to remind foreign nationals in the UK when their visa is close to expiry. The pilot scheme has already started.
The Home Office will run the scheme in concert with the private sector outsourcing firm Capita. Capita has run similar services for the Home Office before and attracted criticism in the press for its performance. In January, workpermit.com reported that Capita had contacted people with permission to remain in the UK and had wrongly told them to leave.
The former head of the UK Border Force (UKBF) Tony Smith says that Britain lost control of its immigration system between 2000 and 2003 under the Labour government of Tony Blair. He said 'There was a huge influx and frankly I don't think we have ever recovered from that'.
Mr Smith has worked in immigration enforcement for nearly thirty years. In 2012, he took control of the UKBF which was the agency responsible for the UK's frontline immigration activities such as passport control and customs control at airports, seaports and railway stations.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of facebook, has announced that he and other tech industry bosses have founded Fwd.us, a group which will lobby for reform of the US immigration and education systems. It has appointed advisors from both the Republican and the Democratic parties and will aim to be politically neutral. The group includes numerous well-known Silicon Valley figures including Marissa Meyer of Yahoo and Eric Schmidt of Google.
Mr Zuckerberg wrote an opinion piece which appeared in The Washington Post on Thursday April 11th 2013 in which he calls for