Weekly news roundup

This week's news roundup features the Bush administration's last ditch attempts at addressing the immigration issue in absence of fundamental policy reform. We also look ahead to the immigration issues at stake in the Spanish elections on March 9. Germany breathed a sigh of relief, when the deadly blaze that killed nine Turks, including two children, was discovered to have originated from a construction problem in the basement rather than a xenophobic arson attack, as originally assumed.

• Despite the failure to push comprehensive immigration reform through the Senate late last year, the Bush government is stepping up its efforts to stem illegal immigration through the introduction of a “virtual fence”, enhanced border patrols and by making the use of E-Verify – the electronic system to check the status of employed immigrants – mandatory for employers.
• New demographic data by the Pew Research Center points to the fact that the United States will become ever more dependant on immigrants to float welfare programs, similar to the predictions made for Europe's demographic development: “What such an outcome could portend, other analysts have said, is a nation riven politically between older, whiter, voting retirees who are increasingly supported by a younger, darker, working population that, as immigrants, may be disproportionately ineligible to vote.”
• Spain takes to the polls next Sunday. As a relative newcomer to the circle of immigrant receiving countries, the last two governments have struggled to define functional policies that allow the country to benefit from the influx of people, while maintaining balanced social and welfare systems. Most recently, the Socialist government has issued an amnesty for illegals living and working in the country. The conservative Partido Popular has now put up its own plans for immigration policy under its candidate Mariano Rajoy. He would like to see immigrants sign an “"integration contract". This would oblige them to learn Spanish, to work hard to integrate‚ and to return home if they are unemployed for too long or commit a crime.” We will follow the immigration debate in Spain as election day draws nearer.
• The artery is clogged – that would be one way of describing the state of affairs at the Canadian-US border, which, according to the Economist, is having detrimental economic effects. Since September 11th the additional border control measures have meant that patients who need emergency medical care across the border are dying en route, red tape is tying up trade and hampering the exchange of services, as proven by the example of the volunteer firefighters held up at the border for so long, the building they were planning on saving had burnt to a crisp.
• Arson has been ruled out as the cause of the deadly housefire that killed nine Turks in Germany's town of Ludwigshafen. Reminded of the fires that ripped through asylum seeker homes throughout the country in the early nineties the fire was not only seen as a human tragedy but had reopened existing debates over xenophobia and integration policies. In a bold political move, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had flown to Germany to both express his condolences to the victim's families but to deliver two key speeches, which were contradictory in nature. While he called upon his countrymen and women to integrate into German society in one statement, he demanded they resist assimilation into the dominant society in a speech to thousands of Turkish citizens in one of Cologne's largest arenas. More on the story can be read here.