Migration

This week’s news roundup is truly a mixed basket of stories, including a look at the new US citizenship test, a new set of statistics on immigration, which raise a few questions for the Home Secretary in the UK and a story on how a new musical phenomenon is visualizing just how much Italian society has changed over time.

• Janet Hinshaw-Thomas, the founder and director of Prime - Ecumenical Commitment to Refugees, a two-decade-old refugee resettlement organization in Pennsylvania has been arrested in Canada for aiding Haitian migrants in seeking asylum in the country. This is the first time the 2002 law on prosecuting “criminal smugglers” has been applied to someone working for an immigrant aid organization, the New York Times reports. Hinshaw-Thomas’ organization has been accompanying migrants who have exhausted their legal options in the US to the Canadia border over the past few months, always giving Canadian authorities advanced notice. Her lawyer is disputing the charges.
• The United States has been giving citizenship tests to those seeking a blue passport for years and these have become the golden standard for many European countries who are currently developing their own versions of these exams. Now, the US test has been updated: knowing who the Speaker of the House is and correctly identifying Susan B. Anthony’s role in the women’s civil rights movement will help assess whether an immigrant has understood basic concepts of modern American democracy. American or not, would you be able to answer these questions?
• We have highlighted the difficulties the dire economic situation in Zimbabwe is causing neighboring countries in previous posts. This article from the International Herald Tribune describes the situation for Zimbabwean migrants - some permanent, some merely daily labor migrants - in neighboring Zambia. Around a 1,000 Zimbabweans cross into Zambia daily just to purchase basic provisions no longer available in Zimbabwe.
• Michael Kimmelmann reports from Rome on Italy’s changing face, visible in one of the first truly multicultural, successful orchestras. A documentary the Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio went around the international film festival circuit and boosted the group’s popularity at home. They now play sold-out shows up and down the country and politicians hungry for votes have begun to take notice.
  
• Members of the European Parliament are backing EU Commissioner Franco Frattini’s plans for an EU Blue Card.
• Looks like the UK government needs some better statisticians: earlier in the week, the Office of National Statistics published new projected migration figures, revising previous estimates with an increase of 30%. Naturally, anti-immigrant groups and opposition politicians jumped all over the Labor government for their apparent failure to live up to their “complacent assumptions” of migrants coming into the country. Instead of 145,000 migrants annually, the new figure now stands at 190,000. Home Secretary Jaqui Smith reiterated her commitment to bringing in highly-skilled migrants on a points-based system and cracking down on criminal immigrants and illegals with her proclaimed “zero tolerance” approach, while immigration minister Liam Byrne pointed to the fact that these new numbers could be attributed to the EU decision to relax rules on labor migration from the Union’s newest members to other member states.
• The UNHCR has created an excellent web resource on the Iraqi refugee situation, including an update of recent relief work in the region. In addition, the UNHCR is closely monitoring how Iraqi refugees are being treated in exile.

After the painful debate in the US about immigration this past year, none of the future Presidential candidates came out as a hero for the Hispanic voter in the intense conflict between individual Democrats and Republicans as well as within the parties themselves on how to change the US Immigration fiasco for the better. While not a hot issue beforehand, the Bush Presidency opened the issue to allow a debate beyond Iraq and allow Mr. Bush to end his second term with some positive changes to internal policies in the United States near the beginning of 2007.

While seen by many as self-serving, Bush did try to create positive change to US Immigration policy recently, which was in 2001 his main focus before 9/11. In the end, the support for giving more access and legalizing illegal workers in the United States started where it ended, absolutely nowhere. The only beneficiaries were American media outlets who were given something else to report on besides climate change and the occasional car chase in Springfield, Anywhere, USA. Since the end of the Bill this past summer, the only mention of immigration was on Lou Dobbs and the occasional report on the lack of progress of the fence to be built between the US, Mexico and even Canada.

With the increased furor of the US Presidential elections, a large pile of candidates has announced their intention to run. With such a large number of candidates comes large debate that is hard to follow in any neighborhood or community in the US. One debate this past week was done on a Spanish language channel in the US where the Democratic candidates gave their opinion on issues ranging from immigration to immigration as Jon Stewart cleverly pointed out. The interviewer also questioned issues concerning Cuba and how to address Chavez of Venezuela and his negative PR campaign of the US. While most of the responses were directed by each candidate slightly to the left or slightly to the right of their colleagues, the main focus was on how Republicans often-created negative impressions of immigration to quell any proper debate on the issue, while Democrats were seeking a concrete solution to the immigration issue. This image might have been quashed however, when Sen. Bill Richardson, who is of Hispanic descent, was prohibited from speaking in Spanish as not to give unfair advantage to him in the translated debates. In the end I believe that with the vast number of candidates and everyone waiting for the end of Bush, many do not give much attention to any debates at this point so far away from the voting date. The only assurance is that there will be a new President, but no one could predict who it could be at this point…so place your bets!

Immigration was the hot-button topic across Europe for much of this week (see our separate article on the Blue Card proposal). Following EU Commissioner Franco Frattini’s announcement to introduce a Europe-wide measure to facilitate the immigration of highly-skilled workers to combat existing labor shortages, Member State governments fell all over themselves to criticize the measure, if only to appease a presumed electoral backlash. But there was more news across Europe and the world:

• Earlier in the week, the French parliament debated the President’s new immigration legislation, which includes a proposal to demand DNA samples from visa applicants looking to move to France to prove genetic family ties to those already living in the country. The amendment would require consular offices in the native countries to administer such tests. Human rights organizations were quick to point to the costs of these tests, which the proposal suggests should be voluntary. Tests would serve to weed out economically and perhaps genetically less desireable migrants, they say.
• Brice Hortefeux, France’s immigration minister is also stepping up the pressure elsewhere. In trying to make good on the promises in the Sarkozy electoral campaign (see my commentary on the French election and immigration), he met with local administrators during the week to address why they were failing to meet the ambitious deportation goals set by the President. Sarkozy wants to see 25,000 illegal immigrants deported from France this year. Needless to say, human rights and migrant organizations are heavily critical of the emphasis on achieving the ‘right’ numbers.
• Ahead of EU Commission’s ground-breaking announcement on legal migration, the members of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee sat down to formulate their recommendations toward addressing the situation of illegal immigrants.  One key issue was that jail time for illegals be limited to a more humane period of time. Parliamentarians suggested that illegal immigrants be held no longer than 18-months ahead of deportation across all EU Member States.  The lawmakers decided illegal immigrants can be held in custody for three months from the moment they are apprehended by police, after which an extension of up to 15 months needs to be justified — for example, when background checks on the immigrant take longer or if the person has no valid papers and documents must be obtained from third countries. In addition, parliamentarians want to see a greater degree of protection for illegal immigrants with residence permits that have fallen seriously ill and want to curtail the deportation of unaccompanied migrant children.
• Randal Archibold of the New York Times is reporting that while overall numbers of migrants crossing the border to the US from Mexico in Arizona is down - in part due to reinforced policing measures - the number of migrants dying in transit toward the promise of a new life is heading toward a new record.  Migrants are unaccustomed and unprepared to weather the climate changes in the Arizona desert and as they are forced to charter new ground to evade border patrols, there is little word-of-mouth on how to prepare for harsh conditions.
• Nine months after the fact, Union representatives at the Swift & Company meatpacking plants (we featured the story here) are suing federal immigration agents over the way workers were treated during a raid, which led to the deportation of over 600 workers.
• The Associated Press is reporting that Saul Arellano, son of prominent immigration activist Elvira Arellano (we covered the story here) has rejoined his mother in Mexico. Earlier in the week, 150 people staged a protest in Congress against his deportation to Mexico, given his US citizenship status.
• This week’s big migration-related story is obviously the EU Blue Card proposal to bring in thousands of skilled-migrant workers to combat looming labor shortages. Other countries, such as Malaysia, are also learning that simply expelling migrants for the sake of popular politics, has a profound impact on the economy. The IHT is reporting that the country’s campaign to expel 600,000 illegal migrant workers is starting to backfire, as demand for workers is growing with increasing government investsments ($57 billion) in agriculture, construction and manufacturing to sustain economic growth through 2010. Some plantation owners and construction companies are already reporting labor shortages and things are expected to get worse.
• Speaking of Asian governments, Japan Focus has published an overview of how municipalities in the country are dealing with migrant needs and how that, in turn, influences their two-pronged integration policy, which closely and purposely mirrors the European approach (*side note: who would have thought that the patche Europea immigration and integration policy is a model worth exporting!). The full report can be read here. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the results of the survey show that there is a great variance of how social integration questions are addressed, with some communities choosing not to differentiate between local and migrant population in terms of services offered, and others focused particularly on the needs of migrant women.

In Canada in the large and economically significant Province of Ontario there is an election coming next month to decide who will run Canada’s largest economy, yet the focus is not on recessions and profits, but on who has the right to demand funding for religious schooling in the Province of Ontario.

Since the formation of Canada’s two largest populations in 1867, mostly French speaking Catholics and the British English speaking Protestant populations, there has been a compromise allowing funding for the Catholic school system along with the public system to accommodate the reality of society at the time. The issue is that since 1867 Canada has become one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse populations in the world and in 2007 the country is no longer rooted in the same ethnic heritage as it once was. Despite a 1989 UN report condemning the funding of only one religious group in Ontario, the funding of the Catholic school system and no other system has not seriously been addressed. Despite the current Primier of Ontario being married to a teacher from the Catholic school system and his children attending the same school system, there has not been significant criticism of the current system in the government nor in society as a whole until the official opposition brought the issue to the forum in the current election. The reality is that with severe funding issues in Toronto and other structural issues it will be difficult to change the status quo in education and funding. Despite that, most do agree it is not a just system, but no one dared to change anything about the situation. It went so far that Primier Mcguinty of Ontario is publicising funding for other groups as “Segregation”, but despite all the advantages he personally takes from one religious group having rights above any others, he has labelled a term which honourable people such a Dr. Martin Luther King coined to describe a true tragedy in history and used it to maintain true  segregation in the Province.

“Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper” - Gibran Khalil Gibran

Difficulties in the Americas does not only stop with public schooling. In California there is a debate about the rights of homosexuals in the private religious schooling systems and if children who do an act against the tenants of the religious group who run the school have a right to attend the school despite their actions being contrary to the basic rules of the religion. While it is really not clear how the situation will turn out, it will most likely depend on the funding status of the school as well as the rights individuals have in a congregation as opposed to rights of an individual.

The real issue at hand in both the above scenarios is what to do with groups which have been in the US and Canada for a short period of time in comparison to other groups and their rights to education for their children. In the case of Ontario, despite some religious affiliations being able to submit to religious tribunals in the Province, when Muslim groups sought to open tribunals based upon Shari’a Law it was denied by public authorities. Many see the denial of religious funding as an issue of denial of funding to Muslim schools as opposed to funding simply non-Catholics. While Jewish, Hindu, and Evangel groups are the vast majority seeking funding for schooling in Ontario, there is some discussion of the issue as being more anti-Muslim as opposed to pro-diversity, even though there are relatively small numbers of Muslims in Ontario compared to other groups in Canada and similar countries in Europe. While the debate is not clearly defined yet in the election campaign due Oct 10th in Ontario, a reflection of the issue is taking place currently in New York State.

Opening this week is the Khalil Gibran International Academy, which is rooted in the study of Arabic culture and literature. Despite concerns about the Academy being a school to teach radical Islam to young children by paranoid people in the community via public funding, the reality is that Arabic culture is as diverse as anywhere else in the world and is not solely rooted in Radicalism or even Islam itself. Gibran, a resident of New York an immigrant from Lebanon of Christian origin in the early 20th Century is one of the most well known poets in Middle Eastern literature and is studied by most of the groups residing in the Middle East and abroad. Paranoia about education serves in all these instances above as a disservice to those who seek to study the tradition of one culture yet must gain permission from others who do not wish to acknowledge equality in education. Often the criticism comes from groups beyond those who currently do not possess the rights and power to educate their children in any fashion they see fit with full public support. Education is power when the rights to disagree still allows to have the maturity to fund schools and education in a community, even if you do not agree with it or as seen above, understand it. Anyone who read Gibran before would note this debate his words:

“I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit” - Gibran Khalil Gibran

This week’s news roundup features a closer look at Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s agenda on immigration, as well as a number of personal stories on asylum and Mexican-American relations:

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has decided it is time to talk tough on immigration to outflank the Tories, as they try to garner that political topic for themselves. Over recent weeks, David Cameron, the Conservative leader has made a number of relatively vague statements on how immigration is a burden to local councils and a problem that needs to be acted upon. Now Mr. Brown wants to be seen to be doing just that: The Prime Minister has announced new immigration rules for thousands of foreigners seeking work in the country. The scheme would extend the language testing requirement already in operation for highly-skilled (i.e. university qualified, doctors, lawyers, etc.) migrants to the second tier, the skilled migrant category. Skilled workers from outside the EU will have to prove their English language skills or risk being sent home. According to analysts, this new measure could shut out around 35,000 skilled workers a year - and this, in turn, is worrying to British employers. Reuters quotes David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce: “In recent years migrant workers to the UK have ensured the continued growth of the economy, possessing a work ethic and skill level that many young British people just do not have. Of course language skills are important but I would be concerned if this meant that those who want to work and help our economy grow are kept out of the country and take their skills and talent elsewhere.” The Times paints the policy initiative in a far more nationalist perspective, as this announcement arrives in tandem with an incentive package for UK employers to hire British workers, with an emphasis on youth and long-term unemployed.

• In conservative politics elsewhere, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Guiliani has come out to say that illegal immigration is not a crime, kicking off a further dust-ruffling discussion with rival Mitt Romney, who accused Mr. Guiliani of not taking the issue seriously enough. In making his case, the former New York mayor is defending the City’s so-called sanctuary policy, which stopped city workers from reporting suspected illegal immigrants. The policy is intended to make illegal immigrants feel that they can report crimes, send their children to school or seek medical treatment without fear of being reported. It did require police to turn in illegal immigrants suspected of committing crimes. While NYC’s approach is an enlightened one and one that demonstrates true public policy making, Mr. Guiliani’s overall solution to the immigration problem is not: “My solution is: Close the border to illegal immigration.” Now that’s an innovative and helpful public policy proposal.
• We recently reported on how heads of local Iraqi provinces were denying settlement to internally displaced refugees. The latest report by the International Organization for Migration shows just how dire the situation has become: “In Basrah as in other governorates, the report finds that displaced women cannot access limited health facilities because of chronic insecurity and in Kirkuk, traditional customs continue to restrict the movement of displaced women. In Anbar, although governorate authorities have not officially imposed restrictions, the intensity of intertribal conflict requires IDPs to have tribal ties to an area in order to stay there safely.”
• Another prominent case of an illegal immigrant mother has been resolved. The story of Zhenxing Jiang made international headlines in 2002, when news broke that she had miscarried twins after allegedly being mistreated by US immigration official trying to deport her. The case has been under review for a number of years, but now Ms. Jiang has been granted political asylum and is thus allowed to remain in the US with her husband and American passport-carrying children. In her original asylum claim, Ms. Jiang had noted that under the Chinese one-child policy, she could have faced forced abortion or even sterilization, had she returned to the country with two American children.
• The San Francisco Chronicle features a profile of Lionel Sosa, the Mexican-American entrepreneur and political advisor on Latino Affairs who has now thrown his weight into finding practical ways of bridging the divide between Mexico and the United States with his new think tank MATT.org - Mexican & Americans Thinking Together.
• When three Muslim-fundamentalist terrorists were arrested in Germany earlier in the week, following the discovery of a plot to blow up a number of establishments frequented by Americans in September, Germans were shocked at the news that two of the suspects were countrymen who had converted to Islam and become radicalized through the mosque they visited in Ulm, but mostly through the terrorist training camps they attended in Pakistan. Hardly any public attention was lavished on the third suspect - a Muslim of Turkish origin. While all of Germany pondered the possible threat of the “new converts,” the New York Times examines what impact the involvement of a second-generation Turk in this plot might have on the image of the Turkish community in Germany.

Since 1954, there has been a decline in the vision of America as a liberator of nations and people as they were known for in the Second World War and the Korean Conflict and their anti-colonial position after 1945.  Since 1954, the realization that US Foreign Policy could do more harm than good was defined in Guatemala where the CIA helped oust democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz in a coup and installed a military leader Colonel Armas on behalf of the United Fruit Company. United Fruit feared that land reforms by Arbenz would lead to expropriations by the government and hurt United Fruit who owned the majority of Guatemala’s rural farm production and was one of the top banana producers worldwide at the time. The CIA actively aided United Fruit by overthrowing the government and labelling Arbenz and communist and using force to remove Arbenz from power. It resulted in decades of human rights abuses and dictatorships in Guatemala and still produces much conflict today in Guatemala with the Chiquita company, the altered name of United Fruit Co.

While the US has assisted greatly in places like Korea, Japan and Bosnia in the last fifty years, the interference by US Foreign Policy in places where the objective was unclear or stability of government to achieve an economic or political objective took precedent over natural power trends and democratic movements in the country often resulted in disasters inside the US and abroad.

Unclear objectives were part of the conflict in Vietnam and were inherited by the War in Iraq and subsequent civil war that has commenced in what is currently the most dangerous place in the world. It was finally admitted this week that the Iraqi Government will likely not be able to manage the future situation in the country, and unlike in Vietnam where Saigon was taken by the communist forces, Iraq has nothing but splinter groups who will push the country further into anarchy.

Stability of governments to meet an objective was also a strong motivation for US involvement. While in cases such as Bosnia where the objective was clear and noble, other cases such as those in Latin America often produced hundreds of thousands of refugees as well as one party states to ensure stability in the region. The trend and methods in the Guatemalan case spread most notably in Chile in 1973 where Agusto Pinochet was able to murder his democratically elected opposition with CIA aid and ensure his dictatorship until the late 1990s. The 80s saw more bloodshed with support for traditional leaders in Nicaragua and El Salvador who are still suffering from effects of the conflict to date.

Until Iraq, the activities of the US were seen as becoming more as a policing duty as in the Balkans as opposed to producing coups like in Guatemala and Chile. In the 90s, Colombia and the War on Drugs brought US aid to the conflict, albeit more debatable in its result as FARC and other groups often do not represent the people of Colombia, but took to kidnapping western oil workers in the region and contributed to hurting locals in Colombia which have suffered greatly from instability over more than two decades. While the US was not the aggressor in many cases in the Andean region, companies were seen to abuse their position in developing regions but without direct US support for the companies, but only military aid to democratically elected Colombian government officials. These conflicts continue to plague Colombia to this day.

In the end despite moral and immoral activities by the US, the result for many errors in US foreign policy has been a reflection of the errors committed in Guatemala in 1954. Millions of refugees have fled Iraq, Colombia, Vietnam, Chile, Central America and Guatemala of course due to poor decisions and sometimes active punishment of those in opposition. Many of these individuals live in your communities today, and are a reflection of why choosing leaders and their decisions do make a difference to the health of communities worldwide.

Please refer to Kyle de Beausset’s articles on the Chiquita Bananna Boycott and his article on Illegal Aliens and Guatemala.

  Jacobo Arbenz: Elected Leader or Communist? The Media Decides… 

In the 1990’s the pattern was clear. A business deal to produce a product like toys was made in the US, the manufacturing was done in Mexico, the characters and branding for the toys were Japanese and the people who maintained the office were from Mexico, albeit living in the United States and the product in the end went all over the world.

Now the most popular character for younger children in the world today is Dora the Explorer, who is a character of a child of Latin American descent who is tremendously popular in the US and abroad. Unfortunately her character’s toys are not bringing jobs to Mexico despite the cultural links, but are being produced in China. The problem is that this time international politics, the Olympics and suicide in China by one of the top officials in an American toy company surrounds an unclear pattern of how culture, politics and lead paint has produced a scandal that could spark a trade war due to a fictional Mexican girl who is Made in China.

Nearly a month ago it was discovered that many of the Mattel toys coming to the US from Chinese manufacturing plants had too much lead in the paint they used to be suitable for toys for young children. Mattel’s apology was appropriate and reasonably responsive and many toy lines were recalled in turn. A rash of criticisms of China abounded in US media after a number of product recalls, included tainted pet food which killed a few unlucky animals and send a mid-level Chinese factory worker to jail as the sole culprit of the poisoned vittles. Then the head of the manufacturer of many of Mattel’s products in China, Zhang Shuhong, committed suicide for still unknown reasons linked to the tainted paint scandal.

With much of the enormous US debt due to the Iraq war owned by China and the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing, there has been a small PR war arising out of the product scandals. Despite this, developed countries worldwide are moving from Mexico and the Middle East production of the 1990s to China despite all the criticisms and abuses that are now highlighted post Dora the Explorer.

Ironically, the trend in China is likely contributing to a rise in migration worldwide. While in Mexico since 1994, tourism and Maquilladora manufacturing contributed greatly to the rise in the standard of living and stable growth in the Mexican economy, many argue in the world of Dora and the Chinese economic boom, the main revenue to Mexico now is those sourced from those funds coming from the US from legal and illegal Mexican migrants sending funds back to their relatives in Mexico. It could be that the numbers of migrants are increasing with labour jobs moving to China and persons to the US from Mexico, but also that one of the highest grossing products is also teaching American children Spanish in order to communicate and appreciate those coming to the US like Dora herself. While many of these trends have not yet been clearly defined in academic research, the Dora effect will likely become more prevalent with more debt and scandals surrounding international trade, cultural migration and Dora the Explorer herself.

This week’s news roundup features stories on a new wave of highly-skilled migrants in newly developed countries, an update on the US’ current most prominent immigrant activist and a look at how remittances are impacting the global economy:

• The New York Times features an article on the mobility of skilled and highly-qualified migrants, who now constitute 69% of global workers on the move. Increasingly, Westerners are moving to former developing countries as new career possibilities emerge in sectors that have long since become established and in some cases less lucrative in their own societies.
• Illegal immigrant Elvira Arellano, who has become a symbol of the immigrant rights movement has been deported to Mexico, after weeks spent in refuge in a Chicago church. There she protested her deportation and separation from her US-born son. Arellano’s story is just one of the many similar fates we have chronicled in the pages of this blog. A can watch a local CBS report on her situation by clicking on this link.
• Again, tragic news from the Canary Islands. Der SPIEGEL reports that another 10 would-be migrants have died off the coast of Spain. Authorities brought 15 refugees to safety, who reported that they had to throw ten bodies - among them two children - overboard, when their fellow passengers died as a consequence of starvation, dehydration and overall exhaustion.
• The Economist covers the plight of many Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa. Over 3m Zimbabweans are thought to have left their homeland (out of a population of 13m), most of them for South Africa. Many are fleeing for purely economic reasons, as Zimbabwe struggles with an 80% unemployment rate - others are political refugees, their bodies covered with signs of torture. South Africa, so the journal reports, is struggling to accomodate the thousands of migrants, which have made it across the border over the past months and problems are set to rise, as a key river bed, which used to deter migrants from risking the trip has now run dry, facilitating illegal border crossings. <>
• <>Remittances have been back in the news recently. Over on the FPA’s Mexico blog, our fellow blogger Rohini Gupta reports that Mexican migrants seem to be sending home less money than in previous years. We featured a similar story a few weeks back. The International Herald Tribune took a closer look at the global impact of remittances, which “are larger than direct foreign investment in Mexico, tea exports in Sri Lanka, tourism revenue in Morocco, and revenue from the Suez Canal in Egypt,” according to World Bank economist Dilip Ratha.
• While most of Europe faces a dramatic demographic downturn, which will put a squeeze on established pension systems, Ireland is looking at a population boom, partially due to the country’s economic growth, partially due to a larger number of migrants over the past few years. Thus, the country has been increasing its integration efforts, as the International Herald Tribune reports.

In this week’s New Roundup we highlight skilled workers and their challenges working in the United States as well as the surprising death threats against community leaders of minority heritage in a small city in Canada and further findings of Migrants in Southern Europe. We also look at fighting racism in the Czech Republic and Russia and problems on the Mexico border.

• Border Crossings - Rising Breed of Migrant Worker: Skilled, Salaried and Welcome: The New York Times discusses why while many countries are seeking to restrict immigration by low-skilled migrants, they are increasingly working to attract those with advanced degrees and scarce skills. See the story here. 
• In a small East Coast Canadian city of Saint John, a city councillor who says he’s been a victim of race-related incidents is not surprised to see more incidents in the city, after another councillor with Korean ancestry received death threats. The suprising threats against the tiny city’s minorities has shocked a country while prides itself on multiculturalism. See the story here.
• Italian coastguards rescued more than 400 migrants off the southern island of Lampedusa on Thursday, including a group of 300 men, women and children crammed into a wooden boat, officials said. See the story here. As well,  a similar incident in Spain A new wave of illegal migrants has set a course for Spain’s southeastern coast in an attempt to reach European shores. See the story here.
• The Prague Jewish Community took issue about the Czech football team Sparta’s fans racism  and sent an open letter to representatives of the Czech first soccer league team Sparta complaining about its fans who yell anti-Semitic slogans during the team’s games. See the story here.
• Student held over internet video of Nazis beheading ‘migrants’ as Russian police detained a university student on Wednesday on suspicion of circulating an Internet video which appeared to show neo-Nazis beheading one non-Slav migrant and shooting another in the head. See the story here and here. 
• At least 3,000 Central American migrants remained stranded along railroad lines in southern Mexico after an American train operator shut down its operations there. See the story here.
• Soccer’s world governing body slapped Jaime Grondona with a nine-month ban on Wednesday in response to the Chilean player’s behaviour at last month’s FIFA U-20 World Cup in Canada. See the story here.

In this weeks Weekly Roundup we take a look at the US Presidential Campaign and political attacks by Romney against Giuliani’s immigration record, the National Guard situation at the US border as well as Remittances to Mexico and Census changes in the US and problems with the immigration laws in the UK:

• In one of the strongest conflicts yet between Republican presidential front-runners, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney attacked rival Rudy Giuliani Wednesday, implying that Giuliani supported illegal immigration when he was mayor of New York. See the story here.
• NBC Reports There Are “Fewer Than 1,000″ National Guard Troops Along The Border. NBC’s HODA KOTBE: “Well back here on the ground, there are reports of a snag in the President’s border patrol plan. Instead of growing to 6,000 National Guard troops along the border, there are fewer than 1,000, with many states reluctant to send more. See the story here.
• Legal restrictions targeting illegal immigrants have contributed to a sharp fall-off in the remittances sent to Mexico from a number of US states, according to a survey published yesterday. Remittances are one of Mexico’s largest imports of funds into the country. See the story here.
• The government’s proposed changes to immigration rules for skilled migrant workers are unfair and break human rights law, a parliamentary committee said on Thursday. See the story here.
• As of 2006, non-Hispanic whites made up less than half the population in 303 of the nationals 3,141 counties, according to figures the Census Bureau is releasing Thursday. Non-Hispanic whites were a minority in 262 counties in 2000, up from 183 in 1990. See the story here and here.