A makeshift memorial where a tractor-trailer was discovered with 53 dead migrants inside, near San Antonio, Texas, June 29, 2022.
Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
A 1994 US policy was supposed to deter migration by securing popular access points. Instead, it drives people to enter the US by more hazardous means, such as being crammed in hot tractor-trailers.
President Joe Biden has pledged sweeping action on climate change but struggled to deliver it. A legal scholar explains why a national emergency declaration should be a last resort.
Some hard decisions need to be taken about the future of the South African National Defence Force.
Nic Bothma/EFE-EPA
Besides the misalignment of its resources, design, equipment and its additional roles, the military has also been hobbled by misappropriation of funds.
Commissioner Bret Walker said the decision to assess the cruise ship as low risk when the 2,700 passengers disembarked in March was ‘inexplicable and unjustifiable’.
COVID-19 has challenged the systems we have in place for controlling our borders and shown the need to be able to adapt quickly and reimpose physical barriers and other controls when necessary.
Global Climate Strike NYC in New York, Sept. 20, 2019.
Rainmaker Photo/MediaPunch /IPX via AP Photo
Declaring an issue is a national emergency lets presidents act quickly and with few constraints. But once they get this kind of power, it’s hard to take it back – and it can produce bad policies.
When it comes to faces, most of us are typical-recognisers, with just a small percentage classed as super-recognisers.
Shutterstock
“Super-recognisers” who can identify a range of ethnicities could help increase fraud detection rates at passport control and decrease false conviction rates that have relied on CCTV.
From left, the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union affects Ireland, too.
alexfan32/Shutterstock.com
Politicians who want to unite Ireland under a Dublin-based government are stuck choosing whether to participate in the UK in an effort to stay in the EU.
There are often many borders to cross, each bringing potentially fatal risks.
Gareth Fuller/PA
The 39 migrants who froze to death in a lorry crossing the channel join hundreds more who have died trying to get into Europe over land.
The creation of the Home Affairs department means that complex and sometimes competing security and law enforcement priorities now have a strategic policy home.
Wes Mountain/The Conversation
Similar concerns were raised 40 years ago when the Department of Defence was formed, but the decision to merge several agencies is now held up for its strategic vision.
Seidu Mohammed smiles after receiving his refugee claim acceptance letter in Winnipeg in May 2017. The Ghanian man lost his fingers to frostbite after crossing the Canada-U.S. border at an irregular spot.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods
Tightening Canada’s borders won’t deter asylum seekers. The proposed restrictions will only make refugees’ journeys more dangerous.
Scott Morrison’s claim that Operation Sovereign Borders is the country’s great national security achievement overlooks all that has been achieved in a complex area.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Even the world’s best available training – used to train police, border control agents and other security personnel – does not compensate for natural talent in face recognition.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and other Coalition MPs described Labor as weak on borders after the opposition and the crossbench voted to pass a bill allowing medical transfers from Manus and Nauru.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
A refugee law expert on a week of ‘reckless’ rhetoric and a new way to process asylum seeker claims.
The Conversation44 MB(download)
Today on Trust Me, I'm An Expert, a refugee legal expert busts myths about how proposed medical transfer rules would work, and described some of this week's border security rhetoric as 'reckless'.
Wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border in Sunland Park, New Mexico, in 2016.
AP/Christian Torres
As Congress and President Trump struggle to devise a coherent immigration policy along the US southern border, there are lessons from ancient history that could prove instructive.
Scott Morrison signals he might reopen the Christmas Island detention centre, closed in October 2018.
AAP
Morrison told a news conference cabinet’s national security committee had met early Tuesday to discuss the contingency planning already in train in anticipation of the bill’s passage.
Migrants on a ship intercepted offshore near the Libyan town of Gohneima, east of the capital Tripoli, in July 2018.
Libyan Coast Guard via AP, File
After 1.3 million migrants from the Middle East and Africa came to Europe in 2015, many countries built fences or closed their ports. That has pushed migrants to take riskier routes into the EU.
In a counter attack against the Coalition, which is running hard on the ALP being soft on borders, Shorten accused the government of “telling lies about Labor” and thereby “doing the dirty work of the people smugglers.”
Lukas Coch/AAP
He said the $500 million would directly improve orderly regional processing and resettlement in the region and countries closer to where refugees originally come from.
Lucy Francineth Granados, a Montréal community organizer advocating for the rights of undocumented workers was forcibly and violently arrested at her home by the Canadian Border Security Agency on March 20, 2018. Community protests like this one on March 23 sprang up all over the city.
(Ion Extebarria)
What kind of a country is Canada? One which truly welcomes and respects immigrants and their lives and safety? Or one which just says it does but brutally detains and deports them?
Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation; Scholar -In-Residence Asia Society Australia, Deakin University
Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Centre, and Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford