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A government-commissioned report Thursday called for a thorough overhaul of Australias immigration system.

According to the Migration Review the system is outdated and does not meet the countrys current or future skills needs, and therefore requires a long term and holistic approach to find a solution. The report makes sweeping recommendations that will be considered by Australia's left-leaning Labor government.

Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil, who commissioned the review, said Thursday that Australia has to skill up or sink.

She said critical labor shortages are forcing Australia to be more assertive in the global race for talent to recruit highly skilled overseas professionals and do more to retain the brightest international students.

The government considers the complicated and outdated migration system to be a barrier to prosperity. It wants the country to be less reliant on temporary workers, who would, if the reports recommendations are accepted, be given more opportunities to stay permanently. The government is promising safeguards to guard against exploitation and underpayment.

The leader of the conservative opposition, Sussan Ley, responding to the report, told local media Thursday the government must address depopulation and the lack of health services in rural Australia as well as improving housing and other essential services.

ONeil told the National Press Club in Canberra Thursday that major reform to immigration is desperately needed.

I have spoken a lot about what is going wrong with Australias migration system today and there are many, many problems, ONeil said. But what I am genuinely much more excited about is the big opportunity. We have every reason to be optimistic about our countrys future and every reason to believe that our migration system can help us deliver a more secure and prosperous Australia as it has done for us so many times in the past.

The immigration review was carried out by Martin Parkinson, a former secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

His report said it was important that Australians do not feel threatened by economic migrants.

Immigration has been the dominant theme in the story of modern Australia, which was colonized by the British in 1788.

Although more than a quarter of Australias population was born elsewhere, some Australians display hostility toward, or fear of, immigrants.

Voters have supported hardline policies that sent asylum seekers arriving by boat without authorization to offshore camps in the South Pacific.

Since 2013, the Australian navy has been towing or turning away migrant boats trying to reach Australian waters under the governments Operation Sovereign Borders, which continues under the current left-leaning Labor government.

Australias unemployment rate is 3.5%.

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Report Recommends Major Immigration Reform in Australia - Voice of America - VOA News

The federal government willrewrite Australia's immigration system, with almost every visa category up for change, and a promiseto tighten rules for international students.

Among the changeswill be an immediate lift to the minimum wage threshold for skilled workers, which has been frozen for a decade, and the establishment of a pathway to permanency for about 17,000 temporary workers.

A major review commissioned by the government found the system was "complex, inefficient and inflexible", proposing a wholesale rewrite of theweb ofvisa classes, caveats, tests and other complications that has developed over the years.

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Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil saidthe system was not up to the task to solve the greatest labour shortage Australia has faced since World War II.

Yet, despite that, the minister said Australia offeredfew incentives to fix those shortages.

"We ask an overseas-trained nurse to pay up to $20,000 and wait up to 35 months to get their qualifications recognised and their visa granted," the government's strategy outlined.

The government's plan will, in fact, slightly reduce the immigration intake over the medium term, with the fix for labour shortages to come from improving the quality of who is granted a visa.

Many of the finer details will be worked through in the weeks and months to come, and will be legislated in phases, but Ms O'Neil has outlined her thinking on her "urgent task" to overhaul immigration.

Here's a breakdown of some of the biggest changes.

The federal government and the migration reviewhave deliberately avoidedputting a specific figure on how many immigrants should come to the country each year.

One of the problems with doing so, the reviewer and former treasury boss Dr Martin Parkinson argued, is that the debate around a "big" versus "small" Australia ends up consuming much of the oxygen on immigration reform, and often ignores the much larger number of temporary workers that come to the country.

However, the review does propose shifting from a hard limit to permanent migration each year in favour of measuring by net overseas migration, which would account for both permanent and temporary migration, andhelp shift Australia's economy from being so dependent on temporary workers, who are more exposed to exploitation.

It also suggests shifting migration targets from being annual decisions to being decided over 10-year stretches, which would also allow state governments to be more involved in planning to minimise population pressures on cities.

But,if all the recommendations of the review were implemented, it would result in a slightly smaller immigration intake over the medium term, and speaking at the National Press Club, Ms O'Neil said it was her "desire" that it was slightly tightened in the medium-term.

"I'mnot someone who advocates for a bigAustralia in this conversation," Ms O'Neil told the National Press Club.

"What's really important to me isthat we've got these big nationalproblemsfacing ourcountry and we're not getting theright people here through themigration system to help us addressthem."

The government argues Australia's most important methods to bring necessary and skilled workers are mired in bureaucratic problems.

For example, the occupation codes used on the back-end of Australia's migration, tax and other systems have not been added to since 2013.

There are jobs in Australia today facing labour shortages that did not exist when the code was last updated.

The minister wants to do away with those "outdated, inflexible" lists, and instead give Jobs and Skills Australia the authority to determine what occupations are in need.

The minimum wage that can be offered to a skilled worker on an employer-sponsored visa also hasn't been lifted from its 2013 figure, after it was frozen by the Abbott government in 2014, and not indexed since then.

That means more than 90 per cent of full time workers in Australia are paid above its current threshold of $53,900, and employers are using the scheme to import workers who were never designed to be included, and paying them for less.

The federal government intends to raise that threshold to $70,000 from July.

Ms O'Neil said that lift was "a substantial increase to ensure we have skilled workers coming under a skilled program".

On top of that, the government says "the points test" for skilled visas, which helps determine which applicants are most desirable for improved productivity, is not useful andmust be rewritten.

For example, the reviewers say39-year-olds scoredouble the average 40-year-old because of how a one-year age gap is calculated, and that maximum scores for most people on their English skills and qualifications mean visas are often decided on minor criteria, such as whether they studied in a regional area.

The points test has been identified by government as one of its first targets for reform that could quickly improve the quality of workers being given permanent visas.

Ms O'Neil told the National Press Club that administrative problems were "central" to Australia's immigration woes.

"I have sat with visaprocessors at theHome Affairsdepartment and honestly, hats off tothese people," Ms O'Neil said.

"They are working betweenfour or five different computerprograms, cutting and pastingthings, retyping things you willnot believe the state of this IT, itis a real issue."

Those administrative problems are also leaving employers struggling to fill other roles.

The federal government uses ex-Australian National University vice chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt, also a Nobel laureate, as an example.

When the American astrophysicist came to Australia in the late 90s, it took four days to process his working visa.

The wait for a foreignastrophysicist seeking to work in Australia today is about 180 days.

With more than 100 visa sub-classes for people to navigate, the government says the system must be simplified, making it easier and faster for people to be processed.

Those long waits are exacerbating labour shortages, but there are more issues for employers seeking to bring workers here.

Up-front costs for businesses are prohibitive and the review recommends the fees should be charged monthly instead, with workers allowed to leave their sponsored job and search for work for up to six months to make the system more flexible, and help cut down exploitation.

The federal government has also committed to establishing a pathway to permanency for people on temporary skill shortage visas, to prevent Australia from losing those in-demand workers because their visas have run out.

Currently, one of the biggest groups of migrants toAustralia is international students, and more than half of people granted permanent visas come from that cohort.

But most of those graduates also don't end up working in the industries they studied in, and because the wage threshold for someone to be eligible for a permanent "skilled" visa is set at $53,900, most graduates easily qualify even if they are not working in the in-demand jobs they studied for.

Ms O'Neil told the National Press Club the rules for who could come to study would be tightened, with more supports offered for graduates to help get into skilled work.

"We are assessinginternational students based onwhether we think they will be ableto essentially survive inAustralia's education system; it isa low bar toset, appropriately, as theyare here to learn," Ms O'Neil told the National Press Club.

"The issue is thatthis has become the dominant feederinto our permanent programs, [we have] alowbar and we have a broken test thatconverts someone from a temporary toa permanent migrant."

To support graduates, the federal government will considergranting "automatic" temporary graduate visas to people who complete their studies to provide more certainty to employers hesitant about those graduate's working rights, making it easier to find work in high skill jobs.

But the overall tightening is expected to impact how many international students will be able to study here, which will have consequences for universities reliant on foreign student fees.

"What we're reallytalking about here is making surethat the international studenteducation system is doing what itsays on the label,that is, educating [and]bringing young minds from around theregion ... that is not always the casetoday," Ms O'Neil said.

"This is not aboutreducing the number but I think itis inevitable when we list standardsthat there may be some implicationsfor numbers."

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Student visa rules tightened, skilled worker wage threshold lifted as government begins immigration rewrite - ABC News

There has been a groundswell of public debate on the nations immigration control and refugee management system.

The core question has been how to ensure appropriate treatment of foreign nationals illegally staying in Japan by the immigration authorities.

The Diet should not try to bring a premature conclusion to the debate.

The Lower House is now considering a bill to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law to improve the rules concerning the detention and deportation of foreign nationals staying in Japan without a proper visa.

The ruling coalition and some opposition parties are poised to pass the bill after some minor changes.

What is at issue is what should be done to prevent unreasonably prolonged detention of such foreigners at immigration facilities. But the bill submitted by the government offers no legal measure to allow independent reviews of decisions concerning detention such as judicial judgment.

That means the immigration authorities will continue to have broad and strong discretion over these decisions.

The bill also provides for an exception to the ban on deporting asylum seekers while their applications are being processed. This provision could lead to deportations of people who desperately need protection to countries where they can be persecuted.

The legislation should not be enacted without fundamental amendments.

But bipartisan talks for revisions to the bill among the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the LDPs junior coalition partner, Komeito, the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the conservative opposition Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party) failed to address such fundamental issues.

Have they forgot the fact that the legislative initiative to revise the law was prompted by a disturbing incident in 2019 in which a Nigerian male detainee in a detention center in Nagasaki Prefecture died from starvation after he refused to eat in protest against his prolonged detention?

Two years ago, when a similar bill was introduced, only to be scrapped after it was roundly criticized, Wishma Sandamali, a Sri Lankan woman who overstayed her visa, died from ill health following six and a half months of detention at a state facility in Nagoya.

We still have fresh memories of how these incidents provoked a wave of criticism about the inhumane treatment of immigration detainees that spread across the nation through social media and protest rallies.

In the face of these protests, the ruling and opposition parties began talks to revise the former bill with the shared recognition of the need to institutionalize effective measures to prevent unreasonable detention. But the bill was killed after the talks failed to produce an agreement.

The basic framework of the aborted bill has been carried over to the new one. Passing it with only minor revisions would be inconsistent with why and how the previous bill was discarded.

During the latest round of talks over the bill, lawmakers discussed adding a supplementary provision calling for consideration of entrusting an independent institution with the responsibility to process applications for refugee status.

This proposal should be realized before debate on the content of the bill.

It has long been pointed out that administrative work for protecting asylum seekers, which is based on the Refugee Convention and other international human rights norms, should be independent of the immigration inspection and residency management systems.

The Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council this month sent a letter to the Japanese government stating the proposed amendments to the law appeared to fall short of international human rights standards in several aspects of the protection of the human rights of migrants.

The Special Rapporteur delivered the same verdict on the former amendment bill introduced two years ago.

Justice Minister Ken Saito has downplayed the importance of the letter, which he said was not legally binding, and protested the unilateral publication of the opinion. But this is a matter that has a direct bearing on the human rights of foreign nationals in Japan.

It is impossible to create an immigration control system that is supported internationally without heeding the voices of the international community.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 28

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EDITORIAL: More safeguards needed in weak immigration reform ... -

U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, R-Georgia 12th District, has introduced legislation now known as the BARN Act, intended to improve farmers ability to hire guest workers from other countries, five times now, in five different sessions of Congress. He says this legislation should have a place in broader immigration reform.

Highly critical of President Joe Bidens actions on immigration, Allen wants any reform to include greatly increased border security but does say that reform is needed. The BARN Act was one of two more-or-less farming-related issues he talked about in a phone interview last week.

The BARN in BARN Act stands for Better Agriculture Resources Now. The legislation, which Allen reintroduced in March as House Resolution 1778, would transfer responsibility for certifying the eligibility of agricultural employers to participate in the H-2A visa program from the U.S. Department of Labor to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It would also make other changes in the agricultural guestworker program, such as changing the deadlines for applications and approval.

Ive introduced this in every congress, and over the past few years Americans have become increasingly aware of the importance of an abundant food supply and an efficient and affordable food supply because its a national security issue, he said.

By every congress, he means he has introduced the same or similar legislation in each two-year session since he first took office at the beginning of 2015.

The Department of Labor was instituted to employ domestic workers, Allen said. Frankly, I think they see that as their major responsibility, so theyre not entirely cooperative when it comes to bringing in the necessary labor to harvest our crops, and we have a lot of that, obviously, particularly with our Vidalia onions.

If enacted, the bill would also extend greater flexibility to applicants, enact strong reforms to combat visa overstays and fraud, and establish clear housing requirements for those H-2A workers, he said.

The legislation would also remove the word temporary from the description of the kind of agricultural jobs for which H-2A workers are eligible. But an initial H-2A visa would remain valid for only one year, extendable for a second year, after which a worker would have to leave the United States for at least two months and reapply for a visa.

Georgia Farm Bureau and the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association sought and expressed support for the legislation.

Obviously, the bill hasnt passed to become law in the previous four sessions, but Allen suggested that a renewed drive for immigration reform could create an opening.

The president has called for us to pass meaningful immigration reform in this congress, and frankly, that should be bipartisan, and were ready to open those negotiations, Allen said. This thing needs to be fixed at the border. Its horrible.

Immigration reform bills were moving through committees as of last week, he said.

I would hope we could come to some agreement on, again, securing the border, and then how many people do we want to allow each year to go through the citizenship process, and get rid of what we term illegal immigration. , Allen said. Its sad that they have to live in the shadows.

Mentioning his February trip to the Mexican border near McAllen, Texas, the Georgia congressman from Augusta said undocumented immigrants become indentured servants to cartels responsible for smuggling people as well as illegal drugs across the border.

The cartels own the border on both sides; we dont. And somethings got to be done about them, he said.

The other issue Allen talked about as of interest to 12th District farmers was a recent congressional effort, which Biden vetoed, to block the Environmental Protection Agencys latest interpretation of the WOTUS rule. This defines what streams and other bodies of water constitute the Waters of the United States for enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

By a vote of 227-198, the House passed a Congressional Review Act resolution March 9 to roll back the EPAs definition. The Senate adopted the resolution by a 53-43 vote before Biden vetoed the joint resolution on April 6. Only a simple majority vote in each chamber is required to strike down a regulation under the Congressional Review Act, but the resolutions are still subject to presidential veto, and a two-thirds majority vote is then required to override a veto.

A House override attempt then failed April 18. The vote was 227-196, or almost 54% in favor. Those voting for the resolution included all but one of the Republicans present and 10 Democrats.

Obviously, it was under the Congressional Review Act, it was overwhelmingly bipartisan, and the president vetoed it, Allen said. The EPA under this rule has the authority if they GPS and a mud puddle appears on your property, all of a sudden you cant use that property if they determine and they can determine it is a navigable waterway. How absurd is that.

Supporters of the rule would call the puddle example an overstatement, he acknowledged. But Allen says the navigable waters of the United States should be defined by Congress and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in terms of what is truly navigable, and not left to the EPA to decide.

My interest in this, as well as the districts interest in this, is that, you know, agriculture is our largest industry, and this could particularly impose a burden on our farmers and their ability to produce the food required by our district, our state and this nation.

Allen has been talking about WOTUS off and on again since he was first elected. He also took part in Republican-led efforts to block the EPAs interpretation of the rule during former President Barack Obamas second term.

The last time we were able to stop this through the courts, where we got an injunction against it, and then the next administration (former President Donald Trumps) went back to the legislation as Congress wrote it, and now the Biden administration is paying no attention to the peoples will, Allen said.

But the EPA on its website, particularly the page http://www.epa.gov/wotus and its links, traces the complex history of the rule from the 1970s to the continuing court challenges.

In his veto statement, Biden said the resolution would have left Americans without a clear definition of Waters of the United States. The EPA definition, the president argues, actually clarifies matters.

The increased uncertainty caused by H.J. Res. 27 would threaten economic growth, including for agriculture, local economies, and downstream communities, Biden said in the statement. Farmers would be left wondering whether artificially irrigated areas remain excluded or not. Construction crews would be left wondering whether their waterfilled gravel pits remain excluded or not.

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Allen: BARN Act provisions should be part of larger immigration reform - Statesboro Herald

Today, the Department of State (State) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are announcing sweeping new measures to further reduce unlawful migration across the Western Hemisphere, significantly expand lawful pathways for protection, and facilitate the safe, orderly, and humane processing of migrants.

Like many other COVID-era public health measures, the CDCs temporary Title 42 public health order will also come to an end. But the lifting of the Title 42 order does not mean the border is open. When the Title 42 order lifts at 11:59 PM on May 11, the United States will return to using Title 8 immigration authorities to expeditiously process and remove individuals who arrive at the U.S. border unlawfully. These decades-old authorities carry steep consequences for unlawful entry, including at least a five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution for repeated attempts to enter unlawfully. The return to processing under Title 8 is expected to reduce the number of repeat border crossings over time, which increased significantly under Title 42.Individuals who cross into the United States at the southwest border without authorization or having used a lawful pathway, and without having scheduled a time to arrive at a port of entry, would be presumed ineligible for asylum under a new proposed regulation, absent an applicable exception.

The measures announced today will be implemented in close coordination with regional partners, including the governments of Mexico, Canada, Spain, Colombia, and Guatemala. They draw on the success of recent processes that have significantly reduced unlawful border crossings through a combination of expanded lawful pathways and swift removal of those who fail to use those lawful pathways.

Importantly, these measures do not supplant the need for congressional action. Only Congress can provide the reforms and resources necessary to fully manage the regional migration challenge. Since taking office, President Biden has continually called on Congress to pass legislation to update and reform our outdated immigration system. State and DHS are taking action with the tools and resources available under current law, but Congresss failure to pass and fund the Presidents plan will increase the challenge at the southwest border.

The measures announced today include:

The transition back to Title 8 processing for all individuals encountered at the border will be effective immediately when the Title 42 order lifts. Individuals who unlawfully cross the U.S. Southwest border:

To avoid these consequences, individuals are encouraged to use the many lawful pathways the United States has expanded over the past two years. Today, the United States is announcing additional lawful pathways, including:

In addition, the United States will continue to accept up to 30,000 individuals per month from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti as part of the expanded parole processes announced earlier this year. Encounters at the border for these nationalities plummeted when DHS expanded the parole programs. The United States will also continue to utilize available authorities to continue to strengthen and expand additional lawful pathways.

A border-only approach to managing migration is insufficient. From day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has approached migration as a regional challenge rebuilding relationships with key partners across the Western Hemisphere, bringing 20 world leaders together through the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection to jointly manage migration flows, and securing commitments from across the Western Hemisphere to expand lawful pathways, address root causes, and step up enforcement.

Building on these efforts, the United States is joining forces with partners across the Western Hemisphere to:

The measures announced today aim to change the incentive structure that drives individuals to flee their countries and seek unlawful immigration pathways. They facilitate safe and orderly access to lawful pathways throughout the Western Hemisphere so that fewer migrants are putting their lives at risk to arrive directly at the Southwest border.

To facilitate the safe, orderly, and humane processing of migrants who arrive at the Southwest border, the United States will:

The Biden-Harris Administration has been preparing for the eventual lifting of the Title 42 public health order for well over a year. In addition to working to combat misinformation and coordinating with local communities and NGOs, DHS began contingency planning efforts to prepare for the eventual lifting of Title 42. In February 2022, DHS formally stood up the Southwest Border Coordination Center, which leads the planning and coordinating of a whole of government response to the anticipated increase in border encounters. In April 2022, Secretary Mayorkas issued the DHS Plan for Southwest Border Security and Preparedness, laying out a six-pillar plan to manage an increase in encounters once Title 42 is no longer in effect, and updated the plan in December 2022.

Notwithstanding these efforts, we expect the days following the end of Title 42 public health order will be challenging and that encounters will increase for a time, as smugglers will seek to spread disinformation to capitalize on this change. Through the approach described above and the work of our outstanding personnel, the Biden-Harris Administration will do everything within its authority to manage this challenge, but until and unless Congress delivers on the immigration reform measures President Biden requested on his first day in office, the United States immigration system will remain broken.

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Fact Sheet: U.S. Government Announces Sweeping New Actions to ... - Homeland Security