Asylum seekers News

Mexico must significantly improve border infrastructure on its southern frontier with Guatemala to succeed on its deal with the United States to reduce migration, Mexico`s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

The Australian government has consistently defended its removal processes of asylum seekers, saying it adheres strictly to international law, the Guardian said.  

Australian authorities will repatriate asylum-seekers who are found not to be refugees in the Manus Island detention centre this year, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton confirmed on Thursday.

Germany expects up to 300,000 asylum seekers to arrive this year, less than one-third of the total during 2015's record influx, the Federal Office for Migrants and Refugees (BAMF) said on Sunday.

Greece has at least 41,000 refugees and migrants who are seeking asylum, mostly Syrians eligible to relocate within the EU, the migration minister said on Tuesday.

Sweden toughened its rules for new asylum seekers on Tuesday as well as for refugees wanting to join their families in the country, after receiving 160,000 asylum claims last year.

The High Court on Wednesday rejected a legal test case brought by an unidentified Bangladeshi woman that challenged Australia`s right to deport detained asylum seekers to Nauru, about 3,000 km (1,800 miles) northeast of Australia.

Earlier in the week, German federal police said they had identified 32 people who were suspected of playing a role in the attacks on women on Cologne, 22 of whom were in the process of seeking asylum in Germany.

Germany took in almost 1.1 million asylum seekers this year, an all-time record and five times last year's total, a newspaper reported on Wednesday citing unpublished official figures.

Swedish police are looking to deport thousands of asylum seekers who have had their applications denied, Xinhua reported on Thursday.

Overwhelmed by a stream of migrants, Sweden will soon benefit from a "relocation" programme for some of its asylum seekers, the European Commissioner of Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos has said.

Austria has transferred 485 asylum seekers to quarters in the Slovakian town of Gabcikovo as part of an agreement between the two countries, the ministry of the interior stated.

Requests in Italy for asylum protection have soared by 74 percent in 2015 over the similar period in 2014, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has said.

 Hanna Yussef dreams of following thousands of fellow Iraqi Christians to refuge in Europe, abandoning a precarious existence in Jordan, where he has lived since fleeing Islamist violence at home.