The Biden administration plans to maintain refugee admissions to the United States at 125,000, according to a draft report obtained by CNN, “and admit a larger share of refugees from the Western Hemisphere amid unprecedented movement in the region,” reports CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez.

Alvarez reported that the State Department has proposed admitting between 35,000 to 50,000 refugees from Latin America/the Caribbean in fiscal year 2024, according to the draft report. “That’s up from 15,000 in fiscal year 2023, though only around 5,500 refugees from that region have been resettled in the US as of August 31, according to federal data,” writes Alvarez in her story, which was posted on CNN’s website.

More than seven million refugee children are out of school globally, according to United Nations data.

“With the displaced population rising every year, there is a significant and increasing proportion of the world’s children who are missing out on their education,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday that by the end of 2022, the total number of school-aged refugees globally jumped nearly 50 per cent from 10 million in 2021 to 14.8 million, driven mostly by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a new Education Policy Brief  — Education on Hold —  UNHCR reported that only around half of Ukrainian refugee children were enrolled in schools in host countries, for the 2022-2023 academic year.

The factors contributing to low enrollment rates include administrative, legal and language barriers and a lack of information on available education options. 

While the media’s focus these days is on the influx of immigrants in New York City, a recent New York Times article points out that there are plenty of business owners who would love to be able to hire these new arrivals to New York State.

The problem? Federal government policy stands in the way.

“Across the state, many large and small employers have expressed an overwhelming willingness to hire recent asylum seekers; migrants are even more eager to work. But bringing the two sides together is far harder than it might seem,” write Jesse McKinley and Luis Ferre-Sadurni in the New York Times article.

They note that migrants are prohibited by federal policy from securing work permits until 180 days after an asylum application is filed, “a process that has resulted in monthslong backlogs and has frustrated both business and elected leaders, especially in upstate New York, where farms and small rural towns mix with a series of often hard-strapped Erie Canal cities.”

In related news, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Gov. Kathy Hochul recently “called on the federal government to provide New York State relief in the midst of the migrant crisis by speeding work authorizations for asylum-seekers arriving in regions that include Buffalo,” reports Harold McNeil in the Buffalo News.

Five months after Canada reached a deal in 2022 to stanch the flow of asylum seekers entering from the U.S., “the overall number of people filing refugee claims in Canada has risen instead of falling,” Reuters reported.

“Many now come by air, while others sneak across the border and hide until they can apply for asylum without fear of being sent back, people working with migrants told Reuters.”

“The numbers show how hard it is for countries to shut the door on desperate people and the challenge unexpected numbers of asylum seekers can pose: In Toronto, hundreds slept on the streets this summer as they struggled to find beds,” wrote Wa Lone and Anna Paperny in their article.

The Biden Administration appears to have “hit on a successful formula for managing dysfunction at the border—at least for now,” writes Andrew Selee, President of the Migration Policy Institute, in Foreign Affairs.

The new migration policy “is built around a three-part strategy: tightening enforcement at the U.S.-Mexican border, expanding legal pathways for entry, and vetting candidates for asylum and humanitarian protection in countries of origin rather than primarily at the border itself,” he notes.

The new approach faces challenges including whether U.S. courts deem it legal. “But if the strategy works over the long term, it will mark an ambitious effort to reimagine how governments manage the flow of migrants in a safer, more organized way that moves the admittance process much farther upstream, long before most potential migrants reach the border,” writes Selee.

Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Congresswoman Grace Meng (NY-06) have reintroduced the National Office of New Americans Act. The legislation would establish a National Office of New Americans within the White House to support immigrants and refugees in overcoming common obstacles to naturalization, including language barriers and challenges navigating the search for employment.

In addition, the National Office of New Americans Act would strengthen coordination between federal, state, and local governments to support the social, economic, and civic integration of immigrants and refugees, a news release from Markey’s office notes.

A copy of the legislation can be found HERE.

The Dutch government collapsed on Friday after the parties in its ruling coalition failed to reach an agreement on migration policy, “underlining how the issue of asylum seekers coming to Europe continues to divide governments across the continent,” the New York Times reported.

The government was set up a year and a half ago but the parties have been opposed on migration for some time, the BBC reported.

Mark Rutte, the prime minister, announced that his four-party coalition government would tender its resignation to King Willem-Alexander and there would be an election, according to the Financial Times.

“Rutte had presided over late-night meetings on Wednesday and Thursday that failed to result in a deal on migration policy,” the Guardian reported.

The British government’s plan to fly some asylum seekers to Rwanda “met a significant roadblock on Thursday when one of the country’s top courts rejected it as unlawful, delivering a sharp blow to one of the top priorities of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak,” reports the New York Times.

“In a judgment delivered in London, the Court of Appeal said Rwanda was not a safe country for asylum seekers. In doing so, the judges reversed a ruling in December by the High Court, which dismissed most legal challenges to the government’s plan to deport people seeking refugee status to the African country before their claims are assessed,” the Times reported.

 The U.K. government said it would challenge the ruling at the U.K. Supreme Court. It has until July 6 to lodge an appeal, the Associated Press reported.

The sinking of a migrant boat off the coast of Greece may be “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean sea, according to the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson.

“We don’t have all information yet on what has happened but it seems like this is the worst ever tragedy we’ve seen in the Mediterranean,” she told a press conference in Brussels on Friday, CNN reported.

The Greek coastguard said nine Egyptian nationals aged between 20 and 40 were also arrested on suspicion of setting up a criminal organization, manslaughter by negligence, exposure to danger, and causing a shipwreck, CNN said.

The BBC on June 18 said it “has obtained evidence casting doubt on the Greek coastguard’s account of the migrant shipwreck in which hundreds are feared to have died.“

Analysis of the movement of other ships in the area suggests the overcrowded fishing vessel was not moving for at least seven hours before it capsized, the BBC said.

“The coastguard still claims that during these hours the boat was on a course to Italy and not in need of rescue,” the BBC reported.

New research from the International Rescue Committee shows that EU states “have consistently neglected the needs of Afghans seeking protection — leaving millions stranded in Afghanistan or neighboring countries, and failing to provide adequate safety and inclusion for the small proportion who manage to reach Europe,” the IRC said on May 31.

Since 2021, around 41,500 Afghans at risk have reportedly been admitted to the EU through humanitarian admissions, including through emergency evacuations in August 2021. “However, this figure is vastly outpaced by rising needs,” the IRC said.

The IRC’s new report, Two years on: Afghans still lack pathways to safety in the EU, “highlights how many of the schemes set up to bring Afghans to safety in Europe are falling short of their targets.”