STEP OUT Migration

Samantha Power on Iraq

The always passionate Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, weighs in on the Iraqi refugee crisis with this piece in Time.  Read it and weep.

NYT on the Iraqi Refugee Crisis

Here's a strong editorial on the Iraqi refugee crisis and the inadequacy of the U.S. response.  By the way, Villanova University's law school will be holding a forum on this issue in April 2008 in Washington, D.C.  More details to come soon.   

Skilled Workers on the March

Here's an interesting story about how skilled migrants are increasingly becoming politically engaged.  The article highlights a march in Washington taking place today and the formation and increasing activity of several skilled immigrant lobbying groups.  It's a sad and economically self-defeating truth that the immigration system is unnecessarily difficult to navigate even for skilled workers and the companies who employ them.  But the fact that the immigrants themselves have formed groups to address the issue illustrates a point we make in our book -- that the development of the internet has made the organization of diasporas much much easier than it was previously.  This has implications for U.S. policy, but perhaps the bigger impact occurs when organized diasporas turn their attention towards home.