Washington: Thousands of immigrants and activists held a rally at the US Capitol to urge Congress to overhaul the immigration system for over 11 million illegal immigrants, including some 260,000 Indians, living in the shadows. The show of support for comprehensive immigration reforms came on Wednesday even as the so-called Gang of Eight senators, four Democrats and four Republicans, announced they were close to a deal after weeks of negotiations.
Called Citizenship for 11 Million, the rally was backed by community gatherings across the country pressing Congress for comprehensive immigration overhaul this week, said ABC News. Staten Island, New York, New Haven, Connecticut, Charlottesville, Virginia, Boston and several other cities had hosted rallies ahead of the Washington demonstration.
Jessica Ramos, spokeswoman for the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance, told ABC News that besides Mexicans, who make up 60 percent of the undocumented immigrants, there was a lot of South Asian as also African and Eastern European participation. The Washington Post, meanwhile, citing Senate aides said the bipartisan legislation should advance to the Senate floor for a vote before May end.
But several hurdles remain, especially in the Republican-controlled House, where most of the party members have expressed opposition to allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens, it said. According to the Post, many in the capital crowd held up signs that read, "Dividing families is immoral!" and "I was born on Earth, how am I an alien?!" They waved flags from Mexico, Brazil and El Salvador, as well as
11:59 AM, Apr 11, 2013
Targeting highly skilled talents from India and China, a bi-partisan group of US lawmakers have introduced a new bill in the Congress to create more than 125,000 new visas to attract global talents to America. The bill called Startup 3.0 proposes to help increase America's access to talent by creating a new set of conditional visas for 75,000 immigrant entrepreneurs and 50,000 foreign STEM (Science technology, engineering and math) graduate...
09:30 AM, Feb 16, 2013
US President Barack Obama has come out with his much-awaited comprehensive immigration reforms that, among other things, will pave way for legalisation of more than 11 million undocumented immigrants. ...
11:24 AM, Jan 30, 2013
Who is William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton or the Beatles ? If you don't know the answers, you may not get British citizenship. Immigrants who wish to settle in the UK will now have to learn key facts about British history to pass their citizenship test. ...
03:40 AM, Jan 28, 2013
Indians are reportedly among thousands of illegal immigrants willing to pay human smugglers up to 1,500 pounds to flee the UK. A new BBC undercover documentary has revealed that the foreign nationals are put in the back of trucks and transported to Calais in France before making their way to other European destinations. ...
06:01 PM, Jan 21, 2013
In a bid to stop cheating, Britain is set to ban immigrants from taking driving tests in Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Kashmiri, Tamil, Urdu and 12 other foreign languages under new plans to be unveiled next month. ...
10:41 PM, Jan 20, 2013
For the first time in history, white British people are now in a minority in London. They have been overtaken by the immigrant population from countries like India, the latest census revealed. Just 3.7 million Londoners described their ethnicity as 'White British' in 2011 - down from 4.3 million in 2001, and making up 44.9 per cent of the city's population. ...
09:02 PM, Dec 11, 2012
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said Muslims are outnumbering Hindus in Assam not because of the increase in illegal migration from Bangladesh but because Muslims are illiterate and bear more children. Speaking to Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate, the Chief Minister took full responsibility for the communal riots and said that there were multiple reasons behind it. Here is an excerpt from the interview: Speaking on Devil's Advocate with Karan...
11:07 PM, Sep 09, 2012
Mandya: A group of ABVP activists caused a flutter as they picked up an altercation with a group of over 150 youths travelling by a train suspecting them to be illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. However, during police intervention it came to light that the youths were construction workers from West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha heading to Bangalore, Railway Police DySP Arif Ali told PTI. The incident late last night delayed the...
10:38 AM, Aug 31, 2012
Washington: The Obama administration has directed young illegal immigrants to fill out new forms and pay $465 if they want to apply under a new programme that would let them avoid deportation and obtain a US work permit. The government renewed warnings that the process would not lead to citizenship or give them permission to travel internationally. It will begin accepting immigrants' applications on Wednesday. The announcement came just months...
08:28 PM, Aug 15, 2012
Washington: At least 30,000 Indians would be among the 1.76 million undocumented illegal immigrants who would benefit from US President Barack Obama's new policy to defer deportation of illegal immigrants for two years, a new study said. Using Current Population Survey data from the US Census Bureau, Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that as many as 1.76 million people, under the age of 31, could be at risk of being...
08:34 AM, Aug 08, 2012
Kokrajhar: Three people were shot dead near riot-affected Kokrajhar region of Assam on Monday night, in the second such incident in two days. Police and para-military forces were rushed to the affected areas. On Sunday, four people were killed in a similar act of violence, ending ten days of relative calm in the region. Three bodies with bullet injuries were recovered from Chirang while one from Kokrajhar. Lower Assam has...
08:38 AM, Aug 07, 2012
London: Britain's most prominent business leaders, including Indian-origin Karan Bilimoria of Cobra Beer, on Sunday appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron to remove foreign students from official immigration figures to avoid choking off a valuable source of wealth and skills. In a letter published in The Sunday Times, the 37 business leaders warn that visa restrictions designed to bring net immigration below 100,000 a year will deter wealthy foreigners from...
04:33 AM, Jul 23, 2012
Phoenix: Undocumented Mexican youths who came to the United States as children reacted with joy to an Obama administration rule change on Friday that could spare them deportation, although opponents slammed it as amnesty and ridiculous. "It hasn't really sunk in entirely, but I feel a sense of joy and happiness because I know this is really going to change my life," said Justino Mora, 22, an undocumented computer science...
05:31 AM, Jun 16, 2012
Washington: An estimated 240,000 Indian immigrants are among 11.5 million foreigners living illegally in the United States without proper immigration documents, according to latest official figures. The flow of Indians coming clandestinely to the US has, in fact, doubled between 2000 and 2011, said the latest report by the US Department of Homeland Security. During the same period the total number of illegal foreign immigrants increased from 8.46 million to...
11:07 AM, Mar 24, 2012
London: UK Prime Minister David Cameron government is putting in place tighter border controls that include checking details of all passengers travelling to Britain from India and other non-EU countries from April. Detailing the new system called 'e-Borders', Immigration Minister Damian Green said there will be clear rules into the correct level of checks for every type of passenger and all types of goods that cross the UK border. The...
03:23 PM, Mar 15, 2012
When I first started reading, 'Homesick' by Roshi Fernando, it came to be like any other book of displaced families and forgotten voices. Of the second generation and third generations, wanting to search themselves and what they stand for. However, though the book did run on these lines, it had a different voice to it. 'Homesick' is a book of many layers and each layer has a unique and original...
08:16 PM, Feb 16, 2012
New York: A mother is lecturing her 23-year-old daughter about her love life, flailing a kitchen knife above her head for emphasis. Mom's point: She'd like her immigrant daughter, from the former Soviet republic of Moldova, to marry a man with similar roots, keeping the family's East European Jewish tradition. Alas, the daughter informs mom that she's already dating a Hispanic man. But she soon dumps him, on-camera, during a...
10:10 PM, Sep 01, 2011
February 1983, Assam's infamous Nellie massacre took place in which close to 3000 Bangladeshi migrants were butchered in cold blood. 28 years on, the memories remain and so does the issue of illegal immigrants. ...
08:39 PM, Apr 06, 2011
Toronto: India and China lead the pack as Canada welcomed the highest number of immigrants in more than 50 years by admitting 280,636 permanent residents in 2010. This new number is about 60,000 higher than the average annual intake of permanent residents in recent years, according to a statement by Immigration and Citizenship Canada. Canada has admitted between 240,000 and 265,000 immigrants annually in recent years. Though there is no...
01:20 PM, Feb 14, 2011
