E.g., 09/28/2023
E.g., 09/28/2023
Asia and the Pacific

Asia and the Pacific

Asia has a disproportionate share of the world’s young, working-age population—which represents the most mobile cohort—with resulting major immigration flows to other regions, and increasing intraregional migration as demographic transitions occur at different levels within Asia. The research here focuses on how the labor-sending countries of the region, notably the Philippines and other Colombo Process countries, manage these migration flows and the recruitment process. It also examines other conditions affecting the region, including humanitarian protection challenges, climate migration, diaspora relations, and remittances.

Protests at a refugee compound in Nauru.
Articles

As Nauru Shows, Asylum Outsourcing Has Unexpected Impacts on Host Communities

For two decades, asylum seekers seeking to reach Australia by boat were diverted to Nauru, a small Pacific Island nation that made a hefty profit off the extraterritorial asylum arrangement. But attitudes among local Nauruans have been mixed, with some fearing their economy revolved around Australia and the foreign workers who shuttled in and out of the processing center. As more countries seek to strike offshore asylum deals, this article examines the effects on local communities.

Migrant workers at a textile factory in Jordan
Policy Briefs

Reassessing Recruitment Costs in a Changing World of Labor Migration

Migrant workers can pay a range of costs when they are recruited and relocate for jobs abroad, accruing significant debt. While many countries, international organizations, and other stakeholders have sought to reduce or eliminate recruitment costs, the pandemic has exacerbated and added to these expenses. This policy brief explores how the costs migrant workers face have changed, and what these developments mean for efforts to promote fair and ethical recruitment.

People pulling vehicles from a flooded road in an Afghan village
Articles

Climate Change Compounds Longstanding Displacement in Afghanistan

Climate change is compounding the drivers of displacement and international migration in Afghanistan, which has one of world's largest populations of internally displaced persons (IDPs). This article examines the climate and environmental linkages to displacement and migration, as well as the policy approaches taken by the Taliban and predecessor governments, particularly as they relate to water resources management.

Recent Activity

Cover Top10 4Smuggling
Articles
December 15, 2015
Big Business of Smuggling Enables Mass Movement of People for Enormous Profits
By Elizabeth Collett
coverthumb iom15
Policy Briefs
December 2015
Shortage Amid Surplus: Emigration and Human Capital Development in the Philippines
By  Dovelyn Rannveig Mendoza
Cover Top10 5Citizenship
Articles
December 14, 2015
Governments Increasingly Restrict Citizenship
By Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan
Cover Top10 7NatDisasters
Articles
December 10, 2015
Climate Change and Natural Disasters Displace Millions, Affect Migration Flows
By Liz Heimann
Cover Top10 9Borders
Articles
December 8, 2015
Border Skirmishes Resonate in National Domestic Politics
By Marissa Esthimer
Cover Top10 10InvestorVisas
Articles
December 7, 2015
Shine Wears Off Investor Visa Programs as Questions about Economic Benefits and Fraud Lead to Reforms
By Kate Hooper and Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Event PH 2015.12.1 LA Live Tower Los Angeles California Ken Lund Flickr
Multimedia
December 1, 2015
Investor Visa Programs: Examining their Utility, Challenges, and Successes
coverthumb tcm australia
Reports
November 2015
The Southeast Asia-Australia Regional Migration System: Some Insights into the “New Emigration”
By  Graeme Hugo , Janet Wall and Margaret Young

Pages

Cover Top10 3Borders UNHCR
Top Ten
December 18, 2014
Border Controls under Challenge: A New Chapter Opens

In 2014 governments in Europe, North America, and Australia reacted to significant mixed flows of humanitarian, economic, and family-stream migrants with a range of new policies. These came as some migrants presented themselves to authorities for processing rather than trying to evade U.S. or European border controls, with the knowledge that backlogs and little political will for the removal of vulnerable populations might allow them to stay for extended periods.

Cover Top10 4Ebola
Top Ten
December 16, 2014
Building Borders around Ebola

Fears regarding the spread of the deadly Ebola virus following an outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone prompted governments around the world to regulate travel from and within West Africa. Travel bans, airport health screenings, closed borders, and traveler quarantines were among the policies implemented. International organizations argue such restrictions drive possibly symptomatic travelers to illegally bypass borders and encourage dishonesty in the exit screening process.

Cover Top10 7Workers2014
Top Ten
December 11, 2014
Exploitation of Migrant Workers in Asia

Mass cases of exploitation and abuse of migrant workers have drawn international scrutiny and criticism of the kafala system in Gulf Cooperation Council countries and private recruitment practices in Southeast Asia. With Qatar under scrutiny amid a frenzied construction boom in advance of the 2022 World Cup, international organizations and human-rights groups in 2014 stepped up their campaign for worker protection reforms.

Cover Top10 10China
Top Ten
December 10, 2014
Migration with Chinese Characteristics: Hukou Reform and Elite Emigration

With a range of policies in 2014, China sought to address changing large-scale migration patterns within the country and beyond. This year included promises to reform the hukou registration system and thus enable an estimated 100 million internal migrants to access social services in the cities where they live, schemes to entice the return of emigrant professionals, and crackdowns on corrupt officials who send their families and money abroad.

Cover Top10 9Points
Top Ten
December 10, 2014
The Points System Is Dead, Long Live the Points System

2014 marked the quiet demise worldwide of the traditional points system for selecting skilled immigrants. Canada, which in 1969 invented the points system, in 2015 will join other countries in adopting a hybrid system that places more emphasis on a demand-driven system. This article examines how following the economic crisis, governments have revamped, hybridized, or ended such programs.

Pages

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Recent Activity

Articles
December 15, 2015

Big Business of Smuggling Enables Mass Movement of People for Enormous Profits

Faced with a flexible, diverse, and seemingly ubiquitous smuggling industry, governments have struggled to respond. Smuggling and trafficking networks, while hardly new phenomena, were put under a harsh spotlight in 2015 for their role as intermediaries in shaping the scale and flow of migrants and asylum seekers around the world.

Policy Briefs
December 2015

Shortage Amid Surplus: Emigration and Human Capital Development in the Philippines

The Philippines has the most sophisticated labor-exporting model in the world, with 1.8 million temporary workers deployed in 2014 alone. This issue in brief reviews the impacts of the Philippines’ successful labor export policy on skills development and human capital growth within the country.

Articles
December 14, 2015

Governments Increasingly Restrict Citizenship

Citizenship came under fire in new ways around the world in 2015, with attempts to both restrict who is eligible to become a citizen and who can be deprived of citizenship. Driven by fears of international terrorism, a number of countries proposed or passed legislation making it easier to narrow citizenship and broadening the range of offenses for which individuals can be stripped of their citizenship.

Articles
December 10, 2015

Climate Change and Natural Disasters Displace Millions, Affect Migration Flows

From earthquakes to drought, natural disasters and climate change played a key role in migration flows in 2015. Climate-induced migration surfaced as a concern at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (known as COP21) as international organizations and policymakers have begun to recognize the growing challenges, and potential protection obligations, of such movement.

Articles
December 8, 2015

Border Skirmishes Resonate in National Domestic Politics

Facing electoral challenges, falling approval rates, and weak economies, some political leaders in 2015 altered border policies or engaged in conflicts across borders as tools of domestic policy. This trend looks at the effects on migration of conflicts between Venezuela and Colombia, Russia and Ukraine, and India and Nepal.

Articles
December 7, 2015

Shine Wears Off Investor Visa Programs as Questions about Economic Benefits and Fraud Lead to Reforms

A number of countries in 2015 redesigned their immigrant investor visa programs in response to questions about their economic benefits or allegations of fraud. The reforms have in some cases made such programs far more costly and encouraged investment in higher-risk assets. Applications for such visas have fallen signficantly in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as policymakers may have overestimated demand.

Video, Audio
December 1, 2015

Investor Visa Programs: Examining their Utility, Challenges, and Successes

A discussion on the U.S. EB-5 program, the motivations underpinning recent changes to other investor visa programs in North America, Europe, and elsewhere, and the implications for the future direction of these programs. 

Reports
November 2015

The Southeast Asia-Australia Regional Migration System: Some Insights into the “New Emigration”

This report dispels the perception that flows between Australia and the ASEAN region are headed in one direction: to Australia. Using unpublished administrative data, the authors sketch a complex picture of skilled Australian emigration to ASEAN, significant temporary movements of skilled workers in both directions, and close connections between the two regions even after migrants permanently return to their country of origin.

Pages