Category Politics & Policy
By Benjamin T. Jones The Conversation is running a series of explainers on key moments in Australian political history, looking at what happened, its impact then, and its relevance to politics today. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has repeatedly claimed that Australia is the world’s most successful multicultural nation. While the sentiment has bipartisan support today, […]
Language learning for migrant children in Germany: separate or inclusive?
German schools currently receive newly immigrated children without knowledge of the local language in so-called ‘Vorbereitungsklassen’, ‘Sprachlernklassen’ or most commonly ‘Willkommensklassen’ – Welcome Classes. The basic idea is to group newly arrived children together to allow them to learn the German language in a supportive and non-competitive environment for up to one year before they […]
Reflecting and producing society through the right to vote
In May 2016 the UK’s highest court, the Supreme Court, upheld the decisions of the High Court and Court of Appeal, confirming that UK citizens who had been living outside the country for more than 15 years would be unable to vote in the EU referendum the following month. This decision came after two British […]
Sanctuary Cities in the United States: Fact vs. Fiction
So-called “sanctuary cities” have been all over the American news since Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) entitled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” on January 25. Cities like San Francisco and Seattle are suing the federal government over the EO, while some Republican lawmakers are supporting it. Trump himself has […]
Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Illegal Forced Labor Practices in Colorado Immigration Detention Facility
Last month, a federal judge in Colorado granted class action status in a lawsuit alleging that private prison company The GEO Group, Inc., forced immigrant detainees to work in a detention facility. While the case is ongoing, it comes amid ever greater concerns regarding the future of immigrant detention in the United States. The suit, […]
The Forgotten Soldiers of Lesvos
By Shala Gafary The Trump supporters were right — militants are among the refugees arriving in Europe. Men who know how shoot a gun, kill their enemy, and pluck an aircraft of the sky. They are fanatic in their beliefs and relentless in their objectives. Our land is ours and we are willing to give up our […]
No endless summer of welcome: volunteerism in Germany since 2015
The so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ of 2015 – during which over 1 million people applied for asylum in Germany – was not perceived as a crisis by the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who rushed enthusiastically to assist them. The enthusiasm has dimmed since then owing to changing public perceptions of refugees and asylum seekers […]
10 days into Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’: a legal round-up
Chaos erupted in airports around the United States over the weekend of January 27-29 as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials scrambled to implement President Trump’s hastily issued immigration-related executive order. Entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” and signed on January 27, the order, among other things: Suspends all […]
Ramifications of Trump’s Immigration Executive Orders
In 1939, the German ship St. Louis sailed from Hamburg to Havana. There, only a handful of passengers were allowed to disembark. The St. Louis then began to sail along the coast of Florida within sight of the lights of Miami. U.S. officials, however, refused requests from passengers to disembark and the ship returned to […]
Victory in Fight to End Family Detention in U.S.?
Immigrant advocates last week cheered the latest victory in the fight to end the detention of women and children in family detention centers in Texas, as over 500 mothers and kids were released from two facilities over the weekend. But the government has appealed the recent court ruling, which comes amidst a series of contradictory […]
