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The European Commission has expressed its concern and has issued a warning to Italy about its general amnesty program for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. Italian authorities will have to check each application for amnesty to ensure the applicant complies with all EU requirements, in addition to Italian law.

UK National Identity Cards will be issued to all citizens and residents beginning in 2008 and 2009. The National Identity Scheme program collects a full profile of each person, including biometric data, into the National Identity Register, and encodes a portion of it to an RFID memory chip on the card.

The Whitehouse announced the end of the so-called 'catch-and-release' policy this week. "Essentially 100 percent" of non-Mexican illegal immigrants who are detained are currently being deported. The...

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The British government is considering if it will impose a seven-year transitional ban on migrant workers for new EU Member States. Prompted by the imminent entry of Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union the government does not want to repeat the mistakes of 2004 with the EU-25 expansion.

Overseas sub-contracted labour to specified sectors in the UK now requires a license from the Gangmaster Licensing Authority. Beginning 01 October, it will be a criminal offence to operate in these sectors without a GLA licence. The agreement allows some financial charges to be imposed on a worker by an overseas agent to offset licensing costs.

13 per cent of British students, workers, and pensioners hope to emigrate in the "near future". According to a BBC London poll, the top reasons given: better quality...

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Working in the UK has announced a new work permit category, the Medical Training Initiatives (MTI) to be available on September first. It is a new sub-category under the Training and Work Experience Scheme. A new application form (the MTI1) will be available from August 29th. Medical specialists admitted to the UK before April third 2006 will not be able to switch into TWES if they continue in their existing training programme. They may reapply from their country of origin.

In Germany, a shortfall of 18,000 engineers is expected this year, up from 12,000 last year. Germans today don't consider an engineering career to pay enough when factored against the cost of living and the potential of other professions. Many German employers report they don't have enough engineers. Reform of immigration policy is being...

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The United States has moved forward with its electronic passport program. Embedded with 'smart chips' that may be read with computer scanners, they store information and biometric data about the person who holds the passport. Plans are for visas and, for some countries, national identity cards to also be embedded with the RFID chips.

One potential U.S. presidential hopeful for 2008 has said that the United States should encourage highly skilled foreigners to immigrate to the U.S. This policy should be balanced with discouraging persons attempting to enter illegally and without needed skills. The changing tone of conservative rhetoric in the immigration debate in America comes as the party is suffering in opinion polls over a legislative deadlock on immigration reform.

The European Union is experiencing a shortage of skilled labour in several...

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Foreign workers entering the UK are stirring up the migration debate as Romania and Bulgaria prepare to enter the European Union on January 1st, 2007. Intense political debate is increasingly including terms such as "controlled immigration" and "quota system." The British economy is still creating jobs after 14 years of uninterrupted growth, but fears about rising unemployment among low- and semi-skilled working class Brits are affecting the debate.

The population of Wales will pass 3 million residents within two years, in large part due to immigrants from Eastern Europe since the formation of the EU-25 in 2004. The UK population has already topped 60 million for the first time.

Migrant workers in the UK have brought many benefits. The Bank of England has suggested that this is one strong factor keeping interest rates...