News Round-Up In Brief

International News:

• In Tunisia’s current power vacuum, many young and underemployed have left to seek a better life in Europe, including more than 3,000 who have illegally arrived by boat on the island of Lampedusa. The situation has created a humanitarian crisis and stirred political furor in Italy.

• Thousands of migrants heading to Israel have set off a national debate on how to deal with the influx.  The advocacy organization Hotline for Migrant Workers has collected testimonies from some 1,000 African migrants trying to cross the Sinai Desert from Egypt into Israel about systematic beatings, rape and being held captive for ransom.

• Hundreds of foreign workers are living without jobs, shelter or a ticket home in the United Arab Emirates, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch.

• Canada welcomed its highest number of legal immigrants in more than 50 years in 2010.

News from the US:

• The population of unauthorized immigrants in the US has leveled off after peaking at 12 million in 2007, the Pew Hispanic Center finds. Access the report on national and state trends in 2010 here.

• Arizona announced last week that it was suing the federal government, alleging that Washington had failed to secure the border with Mexico.

• The leader of a paramilitary border security group was convicted of first-degree murder Monday in the 2009 Arivaca, Arizona shootings of a man and his daughter.

• With the failure of the Dream Act last year, excitement has turned to worry for thousands of immigrant students who declared their illegal status during a campaign.

• A former Congressional candidate accused of sending a mailer to Latino voters in 2006 warning that immigrants could not vote was sentenced Monday to a prison term for obstruction of justice.