Weekly news roundup

• HIV-AIDS activists in Australia are up in arms after Prime Minister John Howard has floated the idea that migrants with the disease could be denied access to the country.
• The BBC reports that officials from the city of Calais and NGO groups are meeting to discuss the possible re-opening of a new asylum camp, dubbed 'sangatte II’.  The first camp of this kind was closed five years ago, after conditions became untenable and the UK government claimed it was holding ground for would-be immigrants to illegally board freight trains through the Channel tunnel to claim asylum in Great Britain. Many asylum seekers died trying to reach the country through these precarious means.
• The New York Times features a story about labor migration in Romania. For years, even prior to the country's accession to the European Union earlier in the year, Romanians have been leaving the country for Spain and Italy, which offer higher wages and often better employment conditions. As a result, local employers have resorted to bringing in migrants from China to plug gaps in the labor market. We will explore this issue further in a future story on this blog.
• The NYT editorial from April 11th argues that President Bush has to commit himself to comprehensive immigration reform, rather than give in to the short-sighted ideas formulated by Republican Senators.   We have addressed the President's plans here. Mr. Bush feels that with respect to illegal migrants, the measures introduced by his administration are already bearing fruit.
• The Migration Research Group of the Hamburg World Economic Archive has prepared a number of factsheets on migration in different countries. This one (PDF download) examines the French situation and supplements our own series on the development of French immigration policy.