Italy’s Senate on April 20 approved the first comprehensive immigration package “by the hard-right government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, which would curb integration efforts, create new government-controlled migrant centers to house those waiting on asylum applications and more detention facilities, as well as establish harsher punishment for people smugglers,” reports Gaia Pianigiani for The New York Times. 

Under the new policies, migrants will have to stay in the centers until their asylum applications are processed, which can take up to two years in Italy, the article notes. “While they wait, they will not be able to seek independent lodging and will have a hard time beginning any organic form of integration into communities. Italy is also planning information campaigns in the migrants’ countries of origin to dissuade them from leaving, in exchange for extra visa quotas.”

Almost two dozen refugees recently graduated from a training program on April 7 by the Community Resource Project in Sacramento, California, to work in the electric vehicle industry, California’s KCRA reported.

The program is funded by a grant from the California Energy Commission.

Click here for the story.

The effects of climate change violence, political instability and economic in Latin American and the Caribbean are forcing millions of people to migrate, reports Marina Franco in a new Axios article.

Ecuador has for at least two decades drawn migrants from nearby countries, Franco notes. “Now people are leaving Ecuador as a rise in gang violence has made living in major cities like Guayaquil untenable for many.” Natural disasters “have also forced more Guatemalans, Panamanians, Dominicans and Hondurans to leave home.”

The story is part of a series in Axios Latino focused on immigration to the United States.

In a March 30 article in the Washington Monthly, Bill Scher details the Biden Administration’s new Welcome Corps program.

“Under this State Department program launched in January, groups of five or more Americans can sponsor refugees vetted by the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and help them permanently resettle in their communities,” writes Scher.

“To what extent Welcome Corps can fix our backlogged immigration system and depolarize the immigration debate may not be known at this point. But let’s make sure as many Americans as possible know about Welcome Corps and let’s see how far it can go,” writes Scher.

Click here for additional details about Welcome Corps.

The bodies of eight people were found on Thursday in the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, “a deadly ending to what the authorities called an illegal migrant crossing from Canada to the United States,” reports Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times.

The territory is known for being a transit point for the trafficking of humans and contraband because of its location, the Associated Press noted.

Justin Trudeau’s government recently announced “a major shift in how Canada and the US handle asylum claims, a move that effectively closes a controversial border crossing,” after meetings in Ottawa in March with President Bide. In particular, Canada will take steps to curb the use of Roxham Road as a pathway into the country from the U.S. by migrants seeking asylum.

Justin Trudeau’s government “has announced a major shift in how Canada and the US handle asylum claims, a move that effectively closes a controversial border crossing,” after meetings in Ottawa on Friday with President Biden, the Guardian reported. In particular, Canada will take steps to curb the use of Roxham Road as a pathway into the country from the U.S. by migrants seeking asylum.

The new agreement will allow Canada to send migrants who cross at unofficial ports of entry at America’s northern border back to the U.S., a change to the Safe Third Country Agreement long-sought by Canada, ABC News reported.

“The U.S. will also be able to turn back asylum seekers who travel across the border from Canada. In return, Canada has agreed to allow 15,000 more people from the Western Hemisphere to migrate to Canada legally,” ABC reported.

Migrant Rights Network, Canada’s largest cross-county coalition of migrant-led organizations, on March 23 condemned “the unprincipled and dangerous decision to close Roxham Road,” which migrants travel to enter Canada from the U.S.

Details of the agreement were expected to be unveiled on March 24 during President Biden’s visit to Canada.

Closing Roxham Road “will only force migrants to take even more dangerous routes because the Safe Third Country Agreement and other immigration laws do not allow migrants more dignified or safer ways of crossing to travel or seek asylum in either country, a right that is protected under international law,” the coalition said in a news release. “We call on Prime Minister Trudeau to end the Safe Third Country Agreement, to ensure migrants can safely cross the US-Canada border, and to ensure equal rights through permanent resident status for all migrants.” 

 The United States and Canada “have reached an agreement that will allow both countries to divert asylum seekers from their borders at a time when migration has surged across the hemisphere, a U.S. official familiar with the agreement said Thursday.” the New York Times reported on March 23. The deal will allow Canada to turn back immigrants at Roxham Road, the newspaper reported.

“In exchange, Canada has agreed to provide a new, legal refugee program for 15,000 migrants who are fleeing violence, persecution and economic devastation in South and Central America, the official said, lessening the pressure of illegal crossings into the United States from Mexico,” wrote New York Times reporters Michael Shear and Ian Austen.

A program launched in 2022 is helping refugees resettle in Tulsa, Oklahoma, aiding in both the immigration process and job search, reports Kristi Eaton in Fast Company.

The program, inTulsa Visa Network, , has four areas of support: legal, relocation, resettlement, and job placement.

The initiative is one of several from the George Kaiser Family Foundation, which is based in Tulsa, to bring more tech-led economic development opportunities to the community, reports Eaton in the article.

To date, 13 people from Ukraine and India have been accepted through the inTulsa Visa initiative, some with their families.

The Biden administration announced Monday “it will allow many Ukrainians who entered the U.S. at the southern border to remain in the country for an additional year under a program known as humanitarian parole,” Voice of America reported.

About 25,000 Ukrainians and their family members who came into the country through Mexico at a U.S. port of entry between Feb. 24 and April 25 last year were allowed to stay for a year. The Department of Homeland Security said it would consider one-year extensions for that group, the New York Times reported.

“This process will provide critical relief to thousands of Ukrainians who have been facing tremendous anxiety and uncertainty about their future here,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. “Vulnerable families should not be penalized for the path they take to save their lives, regardless of their country of origin. For this earliest-arrived group of Ukrainians, the continued legal right to live, work, and access resettlement assistance in the U.S. is absolutely crucial to their well-being.”

She said that moving forward, the Biden administration “should not wait until the brink to extend critical humanitarian protections. For example, the earliest arrivals of the 70,000 Afghan evacuees paroled into the U.S. will see their protections expire as soon as this summer. The administration’s broader use of parole must be accompanied by a thoughtful plan for how and when temporary protections will be extended, and how beneficiaries can access pathways to longer-term status.”

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan to reduce small boat crossings will effectively reverse a ban on child detention implemented under David Cameron and open the door to an expansion of the practice, the Observer reported.

At issue is a recent proposal by Sunak that “is the most drastic migration clampdown yet under the Conservative government, and part of a drive to stem the number of small boat crossings to Britain that have also led to deadly accidents.” (Financial Times, March 10).

“Several senior Tories are particularly worried about changes to the way children will be treated when arriving in the UK, and the way in which the new bill comes close to breaching international law. One former minister told the Observer the changes to rules on children ‘make me sick just to mention’ and would have to be modified,” report Toby Helm and Michael Savage in the Observer.

On March 7, BBC’s Gary Lineker tweeted “Good heavens, this is beyond awful” in response to a video posted on Twitter by the British Home Office announcing the new proposed policy.

Lineker, a former England soccer player, was then suspended by the BBC, but he was reinstated in his role on “Match of the Day” on March 13.