News Round Up In-Brief

US News

• Medical and mental health experts push the Ninth Circuit Court to end Family Immigration Detention, emphasizing that detention exacerbates existing health problems and trauma and inflicts new psychological damage.
• A former federal immigration officer was charged with accepting bribes and sex from undocumented immigrants in exchange for avoiding deportation and employment documentation.
• Over 20,000 immigrant prisoners are being held at immigrant-only prisons where, in order to maximize profits, prisoners are provided with minimal, inadequate health care, resulting in premature deaths.
• Public universities in California have created the DREAM loan, a low-interest, tuition reducing loan, aimed at undocumented immigrants to make obtaining a college education more accessible.
• The Obama administration and the Department of Health and Human Services is expanding its 2009 policy allowing HIV+ immigrants to enter the country to include additional sexually transmitted infections that are no longer considered of great public health significance.
• An affordable, “healthy” housing development recently opened in Florida, emphasizing creating a safe space for immigrant farmworkers to live without pests, mold, or unsafe water.

 

International News

• Many young migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are becoming more susceptible to “lifestyle” diseases after living in the UAE for six years or more. Similarly, a recent study finds high prevalence of non-communicable diseases due to occupational related risk factors among Indiana migrant workers in Gulf countries.
• The International Relations and Labour Committee of the Parliament in Kathmandu seek to take actions against institutions that issue fraudulent health certificates to migrant workers, an issue that has been increasingly prevalent of late.
• Residents and volunteers of a migrant camp located in Calais, France discuss their concerns firsthand about the future surrounding the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe.
• A study finds high prevalence of non-communicable diseases due to occupational related risk factors among Indiana migrant workers in Gulf countries.
• Riots are erupting on the border between Greece and Macedonia after refugees tore down a fence built between the two countries meant to prevent them from entering.
• A U.N. report endorses the protection of migrant workers by providing them the same rights as citizens, in turn boosting the country’s economy and productivity.
• China issued a set of guidelines in order to aid children of migrant parents who work in different cities and must leave their children behind because the cities deny health care and education for them.

 

Prepared by Jaziel L. Ramos-Ortiz