Migration Dialogue provides timely, factual and nonpartisan information and analysis of international migration issues through five major activities: the newsletters Migration News and Rural Migration News, Changing Face and other Research & Seminars, and the Sloan West Coast Program on Science and Engineering Workers.
Contact us at migrant@primal.ucdavis.edu.
Australia continues to struggle with foreigners arriving by boat from Indonesia and seeking asylum. Ex-Prime Minister John Howard won re-election in 2001 in part because of a tough policy on asylum seekers arriving by boat. Under Howard's so-called Pacific Solution, asylum seekers arriving by boat were sent to Pacific Island nations such as Nauru for processing.
The Labor government ended the Pacific Solution in 2007. However, the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat rose, reaching 6,535 in 2010. Labor in 2010 proposed sending 800 asylum boat arrivals to Malaysia for processing and in turn resettling 4,000 UNHCR-recognized refugees in Malaysia, but Australia's highest court in September 2011 struck down the Australia-Malaysia MOU because Malaysia has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
In response, the Labor government in November 2011 announced that foreigners who arrived in Australia by boat would receive "bridging visas" that allow them to live and work in Australia while their applications for asylum are processed. Iranians surpassed Afghans and Iraqis as the top nationality arriving by boat from Indonesia in 2011. Since Iran does not accept the involuntary return of its citizens who have sought asylum elsewhere, the number of Iranians seeking asylum in Australia is expected to increase.
Migration News is produced with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and UCB Institute of European Studies. A paper edition is available by mail for $30 domestic and $50 foreign for one year and $55 and $95 for two years. Make checks payable to Migration Dialogue and send to
Philip Martin, Department of Ag and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, California 95616 USA.
Rural Migration News is produced with the support of the Colcom, Farm, and Giannini Foundations. A paper edition is available by mail for $30 domestic and $50 foreign for one year and $55 and $95 for two-years. Make checks payable to Migration Dialogue and send to
Philip Martin, Department of Ag and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, California 95616 USA.
This network of researchers hosts seminars on labor and immigration issues affecting science and engineering workers, compiles and distributes information on these issues, and cooperates closely with the NBER's SEWP.
The Changing Face project assesses the effects of immigrant farm workers on agriculture and agricultural communities.
Include Opinion Leader Seminars, the Comparative Immigration and Integration Program, and Transatlantic Migration Policy Issue seminars.
