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Posts Tagged ‘migrants’
Minnesota benefits from economic impact of immigrants
Monday, November 23rd, 2009Immigrants will play a key role in Minnesota’s economic future, according to a report released by the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute and the Minnesota Business Immigration Coalition.
“The biggest mistake that people make when they try to evaluate the ‘costs’ of immigration is to look at short-term costs, without taking into consideration the long-term benefits that accrue when immigrants enter the labor force,” says Professor Katherine Fennelly, the lead researcher for the study.
Learn more and read the report here.
Vatican hosts conference on migrants and refugees
Friday, November 6th, 2009The Holy See has announced that the 6th World Congress for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees will be held in the Vatican from November 9 to 12. The event has as its theme: “A pastoral response to the phenomenon of migration in the era of globalization. Five years after the Instruction Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi.”
A press conference announcing the conference was attended by Archbishops Antonio Maria Veglio and Agostino Marchetto, respectively president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, and by Msgr. Novatus Rugambwa, under secretary of the same council.
“Globalization,” said Archbishop Veglio, “has created a new labor market and, consequently, forced many to emigrate, also in order to flee from poverty, misery, natural catastrophes and local and international conflicts, as well as from political or religious persecution. This has opened markets to international intervention, but it has not torn down the walls of national boundaries to allow the free circulation of people, even with due respect for the sovereignty of States and their constitutional charters, safeguarding legality and security.”
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Forced migrants in Europe: living in limbo
Friday, October 16th, 2009On the occasion of the World Food Day (Oct. 16) and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (Oct. 17), Jesuit Refugee Service Europe draws attention to the desperate situation of destitute forced migrants in Europe. All over the European Union we accompany migrants who for good reasons cannot return to countries of origin but are completely excluded from social services in the countries where they are living.
“These persons are living in limbo, in an impasse, without any perspective,” says Stefan Kessler, Policy Officer with JRS. The organisation is currently running a research and advocacy project on the situation of these destitute migrants.
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Police close French migrant camp, detain refugees
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009French authorities have moved in to flatten a camp used by asylum-seekers and refugees in the port city of Calais. The New York Times reports today that they
dismantled and bulldozed a camp for undocumented migrants outside this English Channel port on Tuesday, rounding up almost 300 Afghans, Pakistanis and others who gathered there for years in the hope of making clandestine journeys across the 22 miles of water to Britain.
The BBC has video here.
UNHCR visited the camp a few weeks ago, and published a set of photographs here.
85 missing as boat carrying Haitians capsizes
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009Reuters reports a boat with between 160 and 200 Haitian migrants aboard capsized and sank off the Turks and Caicos islands on Monday, according to U.S. Coast Guard crews helping local authorities rescue survivors from the reefs.
The island nation of Haiti was pummeled by four consecutive tropical storms and hurricanes last September. Recovery has been slow and food scarce, forcing desperate people to take perilous journeys across open oceans seeking relief.
Read more from the Associated Press here and read more about Haiti here.
Congressional delegation heads to Haiti
Monday, June 22nd, 2009Because Haitians are still recovering from a series of four consecutive storms last year which devastated the island nation, there is a critical need for Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.
In December of 2008, the United States began forcibly deporting 30,000 Haitians back to their country, a country ravaged by consecutive natural disasters last September. The two hurricanes and two tropical storms that hit Haiti in devastating succession during harvest season last year killed nearly 1,000 people and left 800,000 of the country’s residents in need of emergency humanitarian assistance. The storms destroyed at least $180 million in crops, exacerbating an existing food shortage.
Several members of the U.S. Congress visited Haiti today on a fact-finding trip. Watch the story here.
U.N. says 11 million people displaced in Central and East Africa
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009Armed conflict and natural disasters in Central and East Africa continue to drive an increasing number of persons from their homes, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported Monday.
The combined number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in 16 countries in the area exceeds 11 million, up from 10.9 million in December 2008, according to data compiled by OCHA’s regional office.
The report comes amid a year-long, worldwide campaign by the UN’s humanitarian wing to raise global awareness of what it calls a widespread “displacement crisis.”
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‘Misery breeds violence’ in Haiti’s seaside slum
Monday, May 11th, 2009Photojournalist Ron Haviv of the VII Photo Agency recently spent time in Haiti, documenting life in a seaside slum for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The ICRC has been in Haiti since 1994 and in Cité Soleil since 2003. Rob Drouen, head of the ICRC delegation, says, “Haiti is a fragile state where armed gangs can be used to stir up trouble for political reasons and abject poverty fuels discontent.”
Click here to see Mr. Haviv’s images, and click here to read the story.
Immigrants face detentions, few rights
Monday, March 16th, 2009The Associated Press has published the results of an investigation into the state of immigrant detention in the United States.
Among their findings:
– A U.S. detainee population of exactly 32,000 on the evening of Jan. 25.
– 18,690 immigrants had no criminal conviction, not even for illegal entry or low-level crimes like trespassing.
– Nearly 10,000 had been in custody longer than 31 days.
