Latin America
Under the so-called "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, Cubans who reach US land are allowed to stay as immigrants, while those intercepted at sea are returned to Cuba.

Labor, H-1B, L-1, H-2B, Unions
The US unemployment rate was six percent in April 2003; California's rate was 6.7 percent.

Mexico: Migrants, Babies, Labor
Mexico has legislative elections on July 6, 2003, and President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN) is expected to lose seats in the 500-seat Chamber of Deputes

Census, Licenses, Education
The Census report of the 2000 population, 281.4 million, was 1.3 million too high, not three million too low, as reported previously.

Congress: Legalization, Naturalization
The House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims is being chaired by John Hostettler (R-Indiana); the Senate Immigration Subcommittee by Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia).

Sanctions, Border, Refugees
There are five to six million unauthorized foreigners among the 15 to 16 million foreign-born workers in the US labor force.

DHS: 9/11 Aftermath, Visas
The Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP), headed by commissioner Robert C. Bonner, brings together the Customs Service

Iraq and Refugees
Before the war against Iraq began, the US created a 60-member Disaster Assistance Response Team, the largest of its kind in US history, to deal with the refugees that the war would create.

South Asia
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association on July 4, 1995 pledged to remove children younger than 14 from factory floors.

Japan, Korea
Japan is facing one of the industrial world's toughest demographic challenges, despite the fact that many Japanese work well into their 60s, and more than half of the elderly live with their relatives.

Southeast Asia: SARS, Countries
Thailand in May 2003 announced that agreements had been reached with Laos and Cambodia to mange labor migration

China: Migrants and SARS, Inequality
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak re-focused attention on China's 100 million plus migrant workers

Eastern Europe
Over a quarter of the residents of the town of Simiatycze in eastern Poland have worked in Brussels over the past decade, reducing unemployment in the city of 16,000 to eight percent

Southern Europe
Spain has about 39 million residents, almost 11 percent of the European Union's population and 10 percent of its GDP, but accounted for 22 percent of Europe's immigration in 2002.

Northern Europe
The Nordic countries are changing, in part because immigration is making them less homogeneous and thus more willing to roll back their defining feature, the welfare state.

France, Benelux
France in April 2003 allowed Muslims to elect their first council to represent the five million Muslims, seven percent of the population, and to act as "official Islam" when dealing with the French government.

Germany, Austria
On May 9, 2003, the German Parliament once again approved the immigration bill that was originally approved in 2002, and then not implemented because of a disputed vote in the upper house.

UK: Asylum, Sanctions, Migrants
Home Secretary David Blunkett has proposed a national identity or "entitlement" card for all adults as part of a package of measures to tackle illegal working by migrants.

EU: Enlargement, Migrants
The January-June 2003 president of the EU, Prime Minister Costas Simitis of Greece, renewed the call for a common EU immigration policy, and recommended that the EU produce an annual report on immigration.

Global Trends
Globalization, the increased connectedness of people despite national borders, is reflected in increased trade and capital flows.

Africa
Under the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad), G-8 leaders promised to increase aid by $6 billion a year if African countries improved their economic and political governance.

Middle East
On May 12, 2003, several compounds housing expatriate workers were bombed, killing 34, but most of the 40,000 Americans and 30,000 Britons pledged to stay.

Israel: Immigration, Migrants


Australia, New Zealand
One in 16 doctors working in Australia – 3,000 - is a foreigner in the country on a short-term working visa; there were only 750 such foreign doctors in 1990.