“One man’s loss is another man’s gain”, this saying is truly applicable for Australia. The United States is all set to enjoy a stronger position in terms of the countries which are preferred by overseas students for pursuing their higher studies.

In recent years, Australia has seen a drop in the population of international students in the country. In the last few years, there have been controversies about racial attacks on Indian students and changes in the immigration policies which exclude many colleges from the Australian skills list. In fact, there have been rumors about imposing cap and ceasing student’s visa. Also, the fall out of many colleges which were offering vocational courses due to these changes have really scared students to take any chances. In fact, Australia refused applications of many students who applied for some course in various colleges. All these factors have resulted in the decrease of overseas students in Australia.

To clear the clouds of doubts from the minds of students, Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship spoke to the press and said that these rumours are baseless and Australia still welcomes international students with open arms. But the impact on the students is just too strong to be handled now. And students are now directing their steps towards United States to fulfill their dreams of overseas education. This would surely prove to be one of the strongest factors in the economic boom of the country in the near future. Overseas students in Australia generate about $18 billion into the economy of the country which is quite a huge amount and cannot be ignored just like that. But with the current situation, it seems that countries like US and Canada are now going to enjoy the benefits of international students.

During his recent visit to the US, Vayalar Ravi who is the Overseas Indian Affairs Minister, found himself flocked with all kinds of accusations from the Indian Americans on the aspect of rigid Indian Visa rules.

The minister stated that no matter which state he visited, the Indian Americans were filled with all sorts of complains concerned with the strict latest visa regulations. He visited various places like Chicago, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and New York and held his interactions with various Indian Americans residing in those places.

In a step to make Indian visa regulations more strict and tight, it was made clear by the Home Ministry that those citizens of India who have taken the nationalities of other countries give their individual passports and get a ‘renunciation certificate’ if they want to mark a visit to India. It is this aspect which is troubling the Indian Americans. It has been confirmed that the stricter visa regulations came into existence after the Mumbai Attacks and after n David Headley (who is a Pakistani America) was found making various visits to India before the brutal attack on Mumbai happened on Nov 26, 2008.

Also, applications for getting renunciation certificates are present in huge piles at the New York’s Indian consulate separately. Hence, the time period for getting the same is increasing at a huge number.

He went on to say that the matter would be discussed with S.M. Krishna (the External Affairs Minister) and P. Chidambaram (who is the Home Minister) as essential steps are required to overcome these loopholes in the system.

After the deadly earthquake stuck Haiti, reports have confirmed that the quantity of Haitians approved to come to Canada is less than the government’s own set target to bring Haitians to the country.

According to a statement by Canadian government, the number of immigration applications for Haitians approved this year is 1,031. But if stats from the year 2009 are seen, the figures are double the amount of stats recorded at the same point, but still less than the current target for Port-au-Prince, which is near to 2,235.

Critics are of the view that given the condition, where thousands of people are still in the need of shelter, food, water and sanitation, it becomes the duty of the Canadian government to exceed its numbers. One of the critics from TCRI states that the number is ridiculously low. Given the condition that people are going through a period of emergency and distress, the waiting period is increasing day by day. No one is sure as to when they would be given more visas.

Others believe that targets are being met as if it is just a normal year, ruling out the chances as to how serious the situation is turning out to be for those Haitians who are waiting in queues.

A spokesperson from Citizenship and Immigration Canada has given answers to these critics stating that they should wait by the end of this year to see the exact statistics and how many visas are granted.

In a few months, a lot of changes in terms of immigration cost in the United States are expected to take place. By September, the cost of acquiring a US Green Card will be hiked. It is going to be around 10 percent more. The changes to the cost are yet to be confirmed. If reports are to be believed the cost will be raised from 930 dollars to 985 dollars.

Along with the changes in the cost of Green Card, the US immigration system is going to bring a few other changes as well. Some of them include a hike in cost for the applications for temporary residence. This fee is likely to rise by 420 dollars to 1,030 dollars; as well as changes to investors’ visas. Currently, the visa category does not require fee, but with the implementation of the changes, it would be subjected to a new fee of 6,230 dollars.

Ninety percent of the annual budget of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Department comes from this fee paid by applicants and petitioners. The government department reviews its fee structure in every 2 years in order to determine if the fees are sufficient to recover the costs. According to reports, USCIS’ fee revenue for the fiscal years 2008 and 2009 was not that satisfactory. This year also the revenue is expected to follow the same trend.

It is confirmed by the immigration department that it will not raise the fee for the US citizenship applications, which already got a boost of sixty-nine percent in the year 2007. The charge is likely to remain 595 dollars per application. USCIS has also made changes to the fees for non-immigration US visas in the beginning of 2010, when it implemented a tiered structure.

Thousands of people on Tourists Visas have dived into the mysterious Easter Island to watch an experience, one of its kinds. Almost 4,000 people are speculated to have joined the crowd, hoping to watch a rare total sun eclipse. The crowd includes people like scientists, students, media personalities, and tourists, to name a few.

Reports say that the flocking has almost doubled the population of the place, a place which is already facing the scarcity of water and other resources. This has surely enhanced the aspect of “tourism” of the place.

This unique alignment of the planetary bodies happened on Sunday at 2:11 pm (20:11 GMT) as the positions remained there for a healthy span of f minutes and 41 seconds.

Astronomers though have predicted normal circumstances; some weather forecasts have speculated the presence of cloudy ambiance, rubbing the hopes of viewing the scene in a clear manner.

According to Easter Island Governor Pedro Edmunds Paoa, the island is ready to embed the number of tourists flocking in for the cause. He said that logically, they were geared up for the moment.

Incidents like these make a remote place like Easter Island a popular destination in itself, hence brightening the facets of “temporary immigration” in a major way.

Delegates from US and Canada met recently to discuss various issues pertaining to immigration to Canada, ways to speed up travel as well as commerce between US and Canada and border security. Apart from this, issues pertaining to visa and immigration for both US and Canada had been discussed earlier.

Jason Kenney, the Immigration Minister for Canada and Janet Napolitano, Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security have also signed a Terms of Reference in order to validate the Visa Policy Working Group. This led to the institutionalization of this joint collaboration which caters to bilateral consultations and sharing of information regarding visas of both the nations, policies for screening as well as admissibility.

According to Mr. Kenney, the longstanding geographic, social as well as economic ties with the United States are the roots for strength for both the nations. By working together as well as catering to information, the various strategies to identifying as well as screening travelers could be redefined. This would help in speeding up the inflow of people who are crossing the borders legitimately. It would also protect them from those who intend to threaten the peace and prosperity of both the nations.

Apart from the above, the level of progress made since they had last met in May 2009 was also discussed. This helped them further identify the various opportunities for collaboration and information sharing especially in relation to areas pertaining to immigration, traveler identity verification process and refugee policies.

Recently, Delhi police arrested twenty seven people at the IGI airport who were traveling to Dubai on forged passports and visas. Two airlines received a threat call of a possibility of the hijack of an airplane but in actually it was a racket of immigration which was busted. Police after arresting the twenty seven culprits is now searching for the source behind this crime.

The call center Kingfisher Airlines received s threat call that around twelve Bangladeshis who were traveling on fake passports are planning to hijack the airplane which was flying to Dubai. After a few minutes, another airline named Jet Airways also received the same kind of threatening call. The police then carried on with its search for culprits at various places and arrested twenty seven people who admitted that they were traveling illegally. But they were not the hijackers but illegal immigrants flying to Dubai. The calls to two airlines were made from Dubai and it must have been called by some rival immigrant agency who wanted to reveal the identity of their rival group.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police in a statement has said that the arrested men are from Iraq and they were traveling to Dubai as they were promised a job over there. The police said that the gang of fake immigration consultants who lure the clients with job promises abroad and send them to other countries on fake visas is channeled through five states in the country. Their one agent is in Delhi and the other is in Dubai, who looks after their travel expenses. Each client is charged with the amount of rupees one lakh for the entire process of immigration and most of them are aware of this truth that they are migrating illegally. On questioning them, they said that they are simply going on a vacation and nothing special. The twenty seven culprits are from West Bengal, Punjab and Haryana.

Delhi Police claimed to have broken a fake human trafficking racket and taken five people into custody. The main man behind the racket was Vipin Sharma, who also holds his association with 20 more cases was taken into custody on May 18. He along with other culprits Sachin Sharma (30) and Aman Alam (who is the brother-in law of Sachin) and Arshad Alam and Bhupender Singh were also arrested one after another.

According to Shibesh Singh, who is the additional DCP of the special cell, states that Arshad holds an involvement in 9 cases, all of criminal nature in various stats. Some of the prominent states where cases mark additional involvement are Delhi, Haryana and Punjab.

Other accused are also involved in various cases. Seven cases are linked with Bhupinder, confirmed the additional DCP. The police have confirmed that the concerned people have been charged under strict MCOCA.

Amongst the assets, which have been found in the whole case are ten Indian passports. Two of them are with false Kiwi visas. Other equipments include one laptop and a color printer which was used to fake visas as well as fake documents required for the same.

According to the police officials, Arshad moved to India from UK and got himself indulged in his brother-in-law’s immigration business. The profit and revenue in this business was so high that he got indulged in it permanently.

Even though, there were reports that the demand for the US H-1B visa among Indians is declining over the last couple of years, new report says that Indian professionals accounted for the one-third of the H-1B visas holders last year. Until July 2, 2010, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services received only 24,200 H-1B visa applications for the second consecutive year.

About 10,400 petitions have been filed with the USCIS under the cap for individuals with advanced degrees. The category’s limit is 20,000. Reportedly, in the first week of when the USCIS started to accept applications, it had received just 13,500 petitions under the general category and 5,600 in the advanced degree category. As of May 14, the total number of applications received was 19,000 in the former category and 8,100 in the latter.

Last year, a total of 123,002 US H-1B visas were issued to Indians, out of the total 339,243 petitions filed. The figures show 36.3 percent of the total visas issued to overseas professionals in 2009 was for Indians. But, if we compare the figures with that of 2007, we can be able to point out how much the figures decline last year. In 2009, the number of Indians issued the visas fell by more than 1/5th since 2007.

The declination in the demand of US H-1B visa among India professionals between the years 2007 and 2009 owe to the global economic meltdown. Regardless of the drop of over 34,000 visas in two years, Indians still remain the leading community to receive the maximum number of the most coveted US H-1B visa. In the year 2007, a total of 157,613 Indians were issued with the H-1B visas and in 2008 the number fell to 154,725.

Along with many benefits, a Person of Indian Origin Card enables its holder to travel to India without visa. However, the PIO card holder must always possess a valid passport in order to consider his/her PIO valid. Below are the eligibility criteria to obtain a PIO card:

• An applicant must have held an Indian passport at any point of time.
• The applicant or either of the applicant’s parents/grandparents must have been born and resided permanently in India.
• The applicant must be the spouse of a person who holds Indian citizenship/a PIO.

Benefits of having a PIO Card:

• It allows a visa-free travel to India
• A PIO card holder does not need a Student Visa or Employment Visa in order to get himself/herself enrolled in educational institutions and engaged in job respectively.
• A PIO holder is not required to register his/her name with the concerned body if he/she does not stay for more than 180 days in India on a visit. On staying over the aforementioned days, registration is must for the holder.
• PIO card holders are privileged with equal facilities same as the non-resident Indians are entitled to in respect of economic, financial and educational fields.
• PIO card holders are facilitated with separate counters for immigration checks at all International airports in India.

An application for the PIO card can be filed at the Indian Mission in the country where the applicant is residing. Along with the application form, certain credentials must be submitted in order to support that the applicant is a person of Indian origin.