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Quite a number of changes to New Zealand immigration policy became effective on July 30th. Both the residence programs and the temporary programs are affected. Overall it is easier to gain bonus points under skilled migration. However bonus points have been removed from one category under skilled migration. Recognized qualifications for an applicant and for an applicant's partner, study in New Zealand, and work experience are all worth more points.

Figures from the United Kingdom's National Insurance bureau show that immigrants do not abuse Britain's welfare system. For 2006, only 2.4% of all immigrants made a claim for unemployment benefits. The Conservatives are proposing annual limits on immigration and reacted to the report by stating that they believe the figures show the government is soft on immigration. Immigrants contribute about ?2.5 billion to the UK treasury annually.

A report by the British Parliament's joint Commons and Lords Human Rights Committee was published on 10 August 2007 which severely criticized retrospective changes applied to the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme from December of 2006. The report concludes that retrospectivly applying rules changes to immigrants attempting to renew their existing HSMP visas is in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. 

Dean Morgan, the workpermit.com General Manager for the UK, was interviewed in a major BBC TV news story about the record number of people leaving the UK last year. BBC News reported that 385,000 people emigrated from the UK in the 12 months to July 2006. Perhaps surprisingly, just under half of these were people who had themselves emigrated to the UK and had been living in the UK for more than a year.

The General Skilled Migration (GSM) program for Australian visas will change from 01 September 2007. There will be major restructuring of the visa categories. From 01 September, the current fifteen categories of temporary visas will be reduced to nine categories.