MIGRATION

The police of North African countries to prevent refugees from crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. EU Interior Ministers and their North African counterparts have agreed. Amnesty sharply criticises agreement. Europe is also relying on African police to stop refugees crossing the Mediterranean. Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior announced in Berlin, the interior ministers of EU countries and North African …

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday condemned France for the “inhuman and degrading living conditions” of three asylum-seekers who were “living in the street without any resources”. The Strasbourg-based court ruled that authorities “had failed in their duties” with regard to the three asylum-seekers, finding France responsible for the conditions in which the three men – an …

As Germany grapples with the coronavirus crisis, Chuks Lewis Ehiwario,  migrant rights activist and Vice Chairman, Foreigners Advisory Council of the city of Kassel, makes a case for refugees and asylum-seekers whose situation seems to be forgotten in the public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 epidemic: —– Today, our way of life has changed because of COVID-19 and the …

Seventy per cent of people irregularly migrating from Nigeria are from Edo State, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said. UNHCR’s Senior Liaison Officer, Amah Assiama-Hillgartner, stated this in Benin, the state capital, during the agency’s Telling the Real Story (TRS) meeting on Thursday. She described Nigeria as the country of transit and trafficking of irregular emigrants, …

In Uganda, LGBT+ people face life in prison as well as violence and discrimination in private and public life. Following a deportation trial, German authorities have granted refugee status to a Ugandan lesbian. A hearing at a Bavarian courthouse on Monday over the asylum application of a lesbian woman from Uganda was thrown out after she was granted her refugee …

Last year, Germany issued more visas for people from outside the EU than in 2018. Above all, more people were given a visa for the purposes of employment. According to Germany’s foreign ministry, the country issued around 2.29 million visas in 2019 – slightly more than in the previous year (2.17 million). The main countries of origin of the recipients …

A tragic shipwreck off the coast of Libya last month and more than a dozen other recent fatalities elsewhere have pushed the death toll in the Mediterranean Sea to 20,014 since 2014, according to IOM’s Missing Migrants Project. IOM stands for International Organisation for Migration, a UN agency. “The disappearance and presumed drowning of at least 91 people reported missing …

Amid fighting in Syria, some 13,000 people were seeking to cross into Greece from Turkey on Saturday evening (29 February), prompting Greece to close the border and call for EU talks. Europe seems to be under the threat of new waves of irregular migration which could assume the proportion of the 2015 crisis when hundreds of thousands of migrants and …

On 14 February 2020, the Council of Europe´s Education Department launched a toolkit aimed at integrating refugees as teaching staff or visiting experts into higher education institutions. The “CoLAB Toolkit” presents inclusive practices on how to best integrate refugees based on their competences and qualifications into the academic environment. The toolkit is based on the lessons learned from the project CoLAB implemented …

The European Union has warned that it could impose restrictive visa implementation rules on Nigeria, if it failed to co-operate in the readmission of its nationals deported from EU member countries. A restrictive visa regime would make obtaining visas to EU countries more difficult for Nigerian applicants. The EU Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Ms Virginie Battu-Henriksson, said …

The Greek government unveiled a plan to build sea barriers across the Aegean Sea in a bid to prevent irregular migrants crossing to the Greek islands from Turkey in a bid, according to analysts, to call the bluff of Turkish President Erdogan, who has repeatedly threatened to send millions of refugees to Europe. Greece’s defence ministry published a call for …

As a new labour migration law is set to enter into force, the federal government has approved an integration plan under which prospective migrants will be offered language lessons and information about Germany in their home countries. The federal government wants to prepare potential migrants for life in Germany already in their home countries. This is according to the National …

Originally titled ‘Evanesce’, Berlin-based legal scholar and creative author Nelly Sarpong writes on a fictional precarious journey across the Mediterranean in a rickety boat overfilled with African migrants, revealing the perils faced by thousands of migrants every year in their quest for better life in Europe.

The Trump administration has issued a new rule  instructing United States consular officials to deny pregnant women visas unless they can prove “to the satisfaction of the consular officer” either that they are not traveling to the US to give birth, or that they have a legitimate medical reason to give birth in the country. In the latest immigration control measure, the United …

According to new figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the population of the country stood at 83.2 million at the end of 2019 – 200,000 more than a year earlier. The population figure represents a new high, Destatis said even though the population growth was much smaller than in the years 2013 to 2018. The agency also revealed …

A new law (Skilled Worker Immigration Act or Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz) that facilitates the recruitment of skilled workers from non-EU countries will enter into effect on 1 March. Germany is currently suffering from labour shortages in many sectors, including health care. Caritas has however warned that the needs of the countries where nurses would be recruited should be considered in the implementation …

Germany plans to deport more Nigerians this year, according to a new report by the international broadcaster Deutsche Welle or DW. The government says there’re about 12,000 Nigerians in the country whose asylum applications have been rejected and have been asked to leave the country. Moreover, more than 20,000 cases filed by Nigerians are yet to be concluded. Going by …

Journalists in the European Union and Switzerland can enter a contest on migration, integration, diversity and democratic culture. The CIVIS Media Foundation is looking for the best programmes focusing on the issues of migration, integration and cultural diversity in Europe  Radio, film, television and online stories are eligible for the CIVIS Media Prize. The categories are the CIVIS Top Award, …

The Berlin Ausländerbehörde (Berlin Foreigners’ Registration Office) became the Landesamt für Einwanderung (“State Office for Immigration”) on 1 January 2020.  Berlin became the first German state to establish an independent agency for immigrants in anticipation of the new Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz (Skilled Labour Immigration Act), which goes into effect in March. For the director of the State Office for Immigration, the new …

Germany’s federal police chief said a lack of pre-deportation facilities is hampering the deportation of rejected asylum seekers and illegal foreigners to third-countries. Germany is struggling to deport rejected asylu-seekers, the country’s top police chief said on Wednesday. Federal police chief Dieter Romann blamed a lack of pre-deportation facilities for deportations not being carried out. Speaking to Germany’s Funke media group, he said …