Migration & Refugees

EASTERN EUROPE: Playing Dice With Migrants

By Claudia Ciobanu
Over the past years, acceptance rates for asylum-seekers in Central and Eastern Europe have been decreasing slowly but steadily. Even for those who do receive protected status, life is a gamble.
Displaced women and her baby, Rift Valley Region Credit: Miriam Gathigah

HUMAN RIGHTS: Festive season a nightmare for Kenya’s Displaced

By Miriam Gathigah
The Christmas season comes with joy and merrymaking in Kenya, where preparations for the festivities are underway as people crowd the street to shop for clothes and gifts. But even as the cheer spreads all around, the situation is different for the thousands of internally displaced Kenyans (IDP's) still living in various camps.
Albertine Yahwah and fellow refugees Credit: Tamasin Ford

REFUGEES: Liberians Struggle to Cope With Fleeing Ivorians

By IPS Correspondents
Albertine Yahwah sits on a hard wooden bench, cradling her little baby in her arms. The 20 year-old walked from the Ivory Coast with her two children and her husband to reach this small town across the border in Northern Liberia.

MIDEAST: Israel Now Builds Separation Wall With Africa

By Adam Morrow
After the separation barrier against Palestinian territories, Israel has begun to build a new wall, this one to keep migrants from Africa out. The new wall is coming up on the Egyptian border, and with Egyptian support.

West Continues to Dodge Migrants’ Rights Treaty

By Thalif Deen
Against the backdrop of rising xenophobia and growing anti- immigrant trends in Western Europe, the United Nations will commemorate International Migrants Day next week calling on member states to ratify the 1990 international convention aimed at protecting the rights of migrants worldwide.

U.S.: And Justice for Few

By William Fisher
Poor defendants on death row, immigrants in unfair deportation proceedings, torture victims, domestic violence survivors and victims of racial discrimination - all these groups are consistently being denied access to justice while those responsible for the abuses are protected, according to a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

U.S.: Judge Chastises Govt on Immigration Policing Lawsuit

By William Fisher
Nearly a year after advocacy groups sought documents to clarify the Department of Homeland Security's "Secure Communities" programme, the government has largely failed to satisfy the requests for information, a federal judge has ruled.

GREECE: The Centre Is Falling Apart

By Apostolis Fotiadis
The experience of walking through Omonia Square in downtown Athens can send shivers down the spine of even the calmest of visitors. In recent months, increased incidents of street crime, drug trafficking, and prostitution have turned the square into a site many citizens go to lengths to avoid.

MIDEAST: Labour Rights Slow to Catch on for Domestic Workers

By Elizabeth Whitman
Recent revelations of domestic worker abuse may be grotesque and horrifying, but they are only the most visible aspect of the many difficulties faced by these predominantly female workers, activists say.
Domestic work: essential yet undervalued... Credit: Ray Mungoshi

SOUTH AFRICA: Violence, Exploitation Fail to Dissuade Female Migrants

By Ray Mungoshi
Since arriving in Cape Town five years ago, Erina Manyene (not her real name) has eked out a meagre living picking up shifts doing laundry and cleaning other people's homes in the city's leafy southern suburbs.

U.S.-WEST AFRICA: Report Urges Enhanced Maritime Security

By Jim Lobe
The United States and its allies should give much more attention - and resources - to ensuring that weak West African governments along the oil- and gas-rich Gulf of Guinea can protect their territory and coastal regions from terrorists, drug and human traffickers, and other threats, according to new report by an influential think tank released here this week.

U.S.: Senate Democrats Push for Vote on DREAM Act

By William Fisher
As immigrant advocate groups held marches, demonstrations and hunger strikes across the U.S. and feverishly lobbied lawmakers in Washington, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, announced he would file a motion Wednesday to permit the Senate to take up the DREAM Act, thus setting up a showdown over the controversial immigration bill.

From DREAM to Nightmare, Deportations Soar in U.S.

By Kanya D'Almeida
While the U.S. Congress idles on the passage of the DREAM Act, immigrants here face ever harsher treatment. The rate of deportations has increased by 1,200 percent since 1990, from 30,000 per year then to a staggering 360,000 under the Barack Obama administration.

U.S.: Clock Ticks on Immigration Reform Bill

By William Fisher
Democratic lawmakers will attempt to summon up their waning power by using the so-called "lame duck" session of Congress to pass what will likely be the closest they will get to comprehensive immigration reform.
A Swiss People's Party campaign poster. Credit: Ray Smith

MIGRATION: Swiss Vote In an ‘Illegal Law’

By Ray Smith
Just a year after banning the construction of minarets, Swiss voters have approved a right-wing initiative demanding the automatic expulsion of criminal foreigners. The initiative violates international law.

Migrant Population on Track to Hit 400 Million

By Sanjay Suri
The population of migrants worldwide could rise above 400 million by 2050 if present rates of growth continue, says a report by the International Organisation for Migration released Monday.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: In Immigration Detention, Life Is Uncertainty

By Stephen de Tarczynski
Mohsen Soltany Zand knows life inside Australia’s immigration detention system. Now an Australian citizen, Zand sought political asylum here after fleeing Iran in the late 1990s.

U.S.: Courts Throw Out a Third of Deportation Cases

By William Fisher
While U.S. immigration authorities are "understandably eager to trumpet the overall number" of people they deport, close to one in three deportations recommended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is being rejected by immigration courts, according to an analysis of case-by-case government data.
A Palestinian enterprise in Lebanon. Credit: Ray Smith

Lebanon Pressured to Improve Palestinians’ Lot

By Ray Smith
Abu Yussif doesn't want to talk about his work any more. "It's not going to help and nothing will change anyway," he says. The tall, white-haired Palestinian has just returned from work and relaxes in his little garden in the refugee camp Bourj ash-Shamali near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.

U.S. Defaults on Vow to Reform Asylum System

By William Fisher
Human rights groups say time is running out for the federal government to make good on a pledge to shift the country's immigration detention system to one that emphasises a civil rather than criminal approach.

U.S.: Few Big Fish Land in Immigration Dragnet

By William Fisher
Putting local police on the "front lines" of immigration enforcement is distracting federal agencies from their objectives by turning over people with no criminal history, or those who have committed minor or non-violent crimes, and setting them on a course toward unnecessary deportation.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*