WORLD NEWS FLASH
UNITED STATES
The issue of migrants being bused from Texas and other locales is spilling from one side of the Hudson River to the other.
After New York made legislation that required charter buses bringing in migrants to give at least 32 hours notices, the people doing the busing found a loophole. They would instead dump them in New Jersey at bus and train stations, leaving them to finish their journey to New York.
Although the migrants were given tickets to finish their journey to the Empire State, there is no guarantee that they would do so. Among the mayors expressing concern is Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who pondered what would happen if the migrants began to strain resources in the Garden State.
The person most linked to the movement of migrants is Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who began the process of busing migrants who crossed the border of his state to sanctuary cities in order to alleviate the issues they brought in with them. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also employed the practice.
While some call the measure inhumane, others have wondered why the cities simply won’t revoke the sanctuary city status and concentrate resources on actual American citizens, rather than those considered as illegal immigrants.
MASS SHOOTING UPDATE
FINAL 2023 TALLY
Information recent as of 12-31-2023 at 12 p.m.
2023 Mass Shooting Stats: (Source: Mass Shooting Tracker – https://www.massshootingtracker.site/data/?year=2023)
WORLD
NEW YEAR, SAME WAR
Major aerial attacks causing widespread death and destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure have rained down on Ukraine in the first days of 2024 due to an intense new Russian offensive.
In a statement on Jan. 2, UN Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown strongly condemned the assaults targeting mostly cities.
“For the people of Ukraine, the new year started with loss, pain, and anguish. For the third day in a row, vast aerial assaults by the Russian Federation have caused death – including several children – and destruction of homes,” Ms. Brown stated.
She emphasized that the situation is particularly alarming as many parts of the capital, Kyiv, have been left without electricity or water, which is particularly dangerous as temperatures are forecast to drop to -20 degrees Celsius later this week.
The humanitarian crisis is equally harsh in the Donetsk Region, where hostilities have left hundreds of thousands of people without any power, exacerbating the already dire situation.
In the face of this devastation, Ms. Brown reiterated the commitment of humanitarians to continue supporting the people of Ukraine.
“Today, my thoughts are with the families and friends of those killed or injured, and with those who fear for the missing,” Ms. Brown said, stressing the need to aid those “suffering the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion.”
In a tweet, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) posted that many children in the capital were forced to spend the night sheltering in the city’s metro stations.
During the last meeting of the Security Council during 2023 – convened at the request of Russia on Dec. 23 – a senior UN political affairs official condemned attacks against the Russian city of Belgorod, located near the Ukrainian border.
At least 18 civilians were killed and more than 100 injured there, said Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General with the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.
Ms. Brown once again reminded the Russian Federation that “indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are strictly forbidden under international humanitarian law.”
MIDDLE EAST
MEDICS PUSHED TO BRINK
Overwhelmed medics in Gaza on Dec. 26 continued to try to save victims of missile strikes including attacks near refugee camps in the center of the devastated enclave that have reportedly killed well over 100 people, the UN health agency said.
World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Medical Teams coordinator Sean Casey said that “100-plus patients” had been brought into Al-Aqsa Hospital in the space of 30 minutes, following reported blasts, including near Al-Maghazi refugee camp.
All of them needed urgent treatment for serious wounds, the WHO official told UN News, while “about 100” more lifeless bodies were brought into the hospital at around the same time.
The UN human rights office, OHCHR, also expressed deep concern on Tuesday at the ongoing “intense” bombing of central Gaza involving more than 50 strikes by the Israeli Defense Forces.
Attacks have killed more than 100 Palestinians since Dec. 24, OHCHR reported, adding that this was particularly concerning given that Israeli forces had “ordered residents from the south of Wadi Gaza to move to Middle Gaza and Tal al-Sultan in Rafah.”
Three refugee camps were hit, OHCHR spokesperson Seif Magango said in a statement, naming Al Bureij, Al-Nuseirat and Al-Maghazi. “Two strikes hit seven residential buildings in Al-Maghazi camp, killing an estimated 86 Palestinians and injuring many more,” he said. “An unknown number of people are still believed to be trapped under the rubble.”
In a social media post on X (formerly Twitter), WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus condemned the “carnage” caused by Israeli airstrikes in retaliation for Hamas’s 7 October terror attacks on communities in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were slaughtered and another 240 taken hostage.
“WHO is extremely concerned about the unbearable strain that escalating hostilities are putting on the few hospitals across Gaza that remain open – with most of the health system decimated and brought to its knees,” the WHO chief said.
In a social media post, WHO’s Mr. Casey described the situation in Al-Aqsa Hospital as a “bloodbath.” He pointed to a boy of nine, Ahmed, who lay dying on the floor of the facility after sustaining terrible blast injuries as he crossed the street near Nuseirat.
“We’ve seen children, women, young men, old men and women, people bleeding out,” he said, noting that patients could not easily be referred elsewhere for lifesaving treatment.
“There’s blood everywhere in these hospitals at the moment. We’re seeing almost only trauma cases come through the door, and at a scale that’s quite difficult to believe. It’s a bloodbath as we said before, it’s carnage.”
The development follows a joint WHO and UN aid coordination office (OCHA) Christmas Day visit to Al-Aqsa Hospital to assess needs after strikes in Gaza’s central area.
Although Al-Aqsa Hospital has medical supplies and fuel to run generators, Mr. Casey confirmed that the facility was taking in far more patients than its bed capacity and staff could handle, meaning that many injured patients would not survive the wait for treatment.
This situation was happening up and down the Gaza Strip, the WHO official continued, speaking from the UN Joint Humanitarian Operations Center in Rafah in the south, that also doubles as a medical facility.
UNITED KINGDOM
GETTING TOUGH ON STUDENT VISAS
Restrictions to student visa routes came into effect Jan. 1, as the government continues to slash migration and curb abuse of the immigration system.
International students starting courses this month will no longer be able to bring family members on all but postgraduate research courses and courses with government-funded scholarships. The changes, first announced last May, have also seen people banned from using the student visa as a backdoor route to work in the UK and will see an estimated 140,000 fewer people come to the UK.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that net migration was 672,000 from June 2022 to June 2023. In the year ending September 2023, 152,980 visas were issued to dependents of students, a more than 930% rise from the 14,839 in the year ending September 2019.
The changes to student dependent rules are part of a wider package of measures to come into force that will drastically bring down the high numbers of migrants coming to the UK to sustainable levels, and crack down on those who take advantage of the flexibility of the UK’s immigration system.
Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “This government is delivering on its commitment to the British public to cut migration. We have set out a tough plan to rapidly bring numbers down, control our borders and prevent people from manipulating our immigration system, which will come into force throughout this year.
“Yesterday (Jan. 1), a major part of that plan came into effect, ending the unreasonable practice of overseas students bringing their family members to the UK. This will see migration falling rapidly by the tens of thousands and contribute to our overall strategy to prevent 300,000 people from coming to the UK.
Tom Pursglove MP, Minister for Legal Migration and the Border, said: “Our world-leading universities rightly attract some of the brightest students from around the world to the UK. But we have seen a surge in the number of dependents being brought by students, which is contributing to unsustainable levels of migration.
“We are completely committed to seeing a decisive cut in migration. The action implemented yesterday to restrict bringing dependents on the student visa route allows us to better protect our public services, while supporting the economy by allowing the students who contribute the most to keep coming here.
“This is part of a series of measures which together will see 300,000 fewer people coming to the UK compared to last year.”
At the same time, the government is stopping the boats and tackling illegal migration. Small boat arrivals to the UK are down 35% this year, illegal working raids have increased by 70%, migration agreements have been signed with France, Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, Georgia and Ethiopia, more than 5,000 Albanians have been returned and arrivals from Albania are down by 90%. This is on top of signing a new treaty with the government of Rwanda and introducing new legislation making it clear that Rwanda is a safe country and allowing asylum seekers to be relocated there as a safe third country.
The changes to student visas strike the right balance to continue to preserve the attractiveness of the UK’s world-leading higher education sector, while removing the ability for institutions to undermine the UK’s reputation by selling immigration not education.
The government remains committed to the International Education Strategy which recognizes the important benefits that international students bring to the UK, including the economic contribution they make. This means balancing the commitment to lower overall levels of migration with ensuring those coming to the UK are highly skilled and provide the most benefit to our economy.
The government will work with universities to design an alternative approach, in order to continue to attract the brightest and the best to the UK, and so they can bring dependents to the UK’s world-leading universities, while continuing to reduce net migration.
In December, the Home Secretary announced a further set of measures to bring legal migration down to sustainable levels. This includes ending the abuse of health and care visas by stopping overseas care workers from bringing dependents, and requiring care firms in England to be regulated by the Care Quality Commission in order to sponsor visas.
Salary thresholds across the skilled worker route will also be increased by nearly 50% to £38,700, while the government is also cracking down on cut-price labor from overseas by scrapping the 20% salary discount for shortage occupations and replacing the Shortage Occupation List.
The minimum income requirement for British or settled people sponsoring family members to join them in the UK will also be increased to £38,700 by Spring 2025, while the Migration Advisory Committee will be commissioned to review the Graduate route to prevent abuse and ensure the integrity and quality of the UK higher education system is maintained.
This package of measures, taken in addition with the measures on student dependents, means that around 300,000 people who came to the UK last year would not be able to in the future – the largest reduction ever. This is a tough but fair approach to bring net migration down to sustainable levels as soon as possible, while ensuring those affected have ample time to prepare for upcoming changes – with the package being introduced gradually throughout early 2024.
