The Department of Homeland Security said more migrants may be released into the United States to pursue immigration cases when Trump-era asylum restrictions end next week in one of its most detailed assessments ahead of the major policy shift. The department reported faster processing for migrants in custody on the border, more temporary detention tents, staffing surges and increased criminal prosecutions of smugglers, noting progress on a plan announced in April. But the seven-page document dated Tuesday included no major structural changes amid unusually large numbers of migrants entering the country. More are expected with the end of Title 42 authority, under which migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times on grounds of preventing spread of COVID-19. A federal judge in Washington ordered Title 42 to end Dec. 21 but Republican-led states asked an appeals court to keep it in place. The Biden administration has also challenged some aspects of the ruling, though it doesn't oppose letting the rule lapse next week. The legal back-and-forth could go down to the wire. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled this week to El Paso, Texas, which witnessed a large influx Sunday after becoming the busiest corridor for illegal crossings in October. El Paso has been a magnet for Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, Colombians, Ecuadoreans and other nationalities. The geographic shift to Texas' westernmost reaches was likely a result of smugglers' calculations on the best route, said Nicolas Palazzo, an attorney at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso. Like other advocacy groups that work directly with directly with Homeland Security, Palazzo said he has had no conversations with the department about post-Title 42 planning. One key question: How will authorities process migrants who have long been waiting to seek asylum? U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said Customs and Border Protection officials told him Wednesday that about 50,000 migrants are believed to be waiting to cross once Title 42 is lifted. Read more: Those wanting to travel to US as visitor or student should apply as early as possible: Embassy Authorities plan to admit those seeking asylum who go through ports of entry but return to Mexico those who cross illegally between official crossings, Cuellar said in an interview. It was unclear how they will return nationalities that Mexico won't accept — like Cubans and Nicaraguans — and are difficult to send home due to strained diplomatic relations and other challenges. Administration officials are developing additional measures, which Cuellar said they would not disclose. “I think the first week is going to be a little bit of chaos,” he said. U.S. officials in El Paso are currently exempting 70 migrants daily from Title 42, said Palazzo, who questioned how officials will handle more people. Unless they raise processing capacity significantly, migrants who go through official crossings may be told to wait a year or so for an appointment, said Palazzo. “Realistically can they tell me with a straight face that they expect people to wait that long?” In its latest assessment, CBP said government agencies “have been managing levels well beyond the capacity for which their infrastructure was designed and resourced, meaning additional increases will create further pressure and potential overcrowding in specific locations along the border.” More single adults and families with young children may be released into communities with instructions to appear in immigration court without help of nongovernmental groups or financial sponsors, the department said. The department didn't indicate how many migrants may cross the border when Title 42 ends. Earlier this year, they expected as many as 18,000 a day, a staggering number. In May, migrants were stopped an average of 7,800 times a day, the peak month of Joe Biden’s presidency. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, migrants were stopped 2.38 million times, up 37% from 1.73 million times the year before. The annual total surpassed 2 million for the first time. The numbers reflect deteriorating economic and political conditions in some countries, relative strength of the U.S. economy and uneven enforcement of Trump-era asylum restrictions.

Although the labour market in Libya has recently reopened for Bangladeshis after a pause of nearly a decade due to the Libyan Civil War, just 15 recruiting agencies are now calling the shots, making the once lucrative destination in the MENA region uncertain and costlier for job seekers. In February this year, Libya's labour market was reopened for Bangladeshis, but the Libyan Embassy in Dhaka was said to be lax in receiving and delivering passports submitted by any agency other than "the 15." The 15 recruiting agencies are said to have been "unethically demanding extra money" for delivering the passports submitted by them after stamping visas. However, following the intervention of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), the embassy started accepting and delivering passports submitted by other agencies on October 24, 2022. Also read: No headway in sending Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia despite agreement In November last year, Bangladesh lifted the restriction on sending workers to Libya considering the "improved political situation" in the war-torn country. In 2012, the government banned sending workers to Libya following political unrest in the country. Sohail Ahsan Khan, an exporter of labour, told UNB that he submitted 12 passports to Md Kefaitullah Mamun, managing partner of Sonar Bangla Krishi Khamar Recruiting Agency, an influential member of the 15 recruiting agencies, for stamping visas a few days back. Initially, Kefaitullah had agreed to accept a fee of $150 per passport from Khan for stamping them with visas. But then he ratcheted it up by 10 times to $1500 and declined to return the passports, else. Read More: Bangladesh wants to boost cooperation with Libya to curb illegal migration Some other victims said the migrant workers are having a hard time reaching Libya on time, as the 15 recruiting agencies, capitalising on the hopes of young people trying to escape poverty and hemmed in by a lack of opportunity, are taking hold of the passports for a long time demanding extra money. Abul Kashem, a youth from Noakhali, said he submitted his passport through a recruiting agency three months back to go to Libya. "I'm not getting my passport back after my visa was stamped due to a melee between two agencies. My visa will expire on November 9. I don't know whether I will, finally, be able to go to Libya," he added. Like Kashem, many other people are not getting their passports back in time before their visas – (for Libya or elsewhere) expire. If they do not get their passports back with their visas, their journey to Libya will become uncertain. Read More: Libya seeks joint commission with Bangladesh to expand cooperation We tried repeatedly, but Kefaitullah simply could not be reached over the phone. He also did not respond to an SMS sent to his number. BAIRA President Mohammed Abul Basher said 55 percent of Bangladesh's foreign exchange earnings come from remittances sent by expatriates. "But regrettably, no one including the ministry concerned or its subordinate offices, is taking any step for the development of the labour migration sector." "After a long time, the opportunity to export Bangladeshi manpower to Libya has been created, but due to the syndicate of 15 recruiting agencies, labour migration to Libya has been hurt," Basher said. He said BAIRA, which has over 1600 members, already wrote to the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment to take action against this "syndicate." "We also wrote to the Libyan Embassy in Dhaka. And the mission has started delivering the passports submitted by other agencies." Read More: Detained Bangladeshis in Libya to be brought back: FM The BAIRA president said they want a "syndicate-free" environment in labour migration so that the workers can go abroad cheaply, or at least spend less money. He also said a delegation from Libya will come to Bangladesh very soon and it will talk with the embassy and related stakeholders to do what it takes to take Bangladeshi workers to Libya at a low cost. About the allegation that Sonar Bangla and other agencies are charging extra money by taking hold of passports, Abul Basher said they are informed about it and are trying to resolve this. "Md Kefaitullah Mamun, managing partner of Sonar Bangla Agency, has been inflicting fatal damage on labour migration. He has been cooperating with the syndicate, harming the sector," the BAIRA president said. Read More: Bangladeshi journalist, engineer to return home from Libya soon: FM State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam Sunday said Bangladesh supports legal migration to other countries and wants to enhance cooperation with Libya to curb illegal migration. He particularly sought the cooperation of Libya in contract farming of Bangladesh agro-entrepreneurs in Libya by leasing land there. Libyan Ambassador Abdulmutalib SM Suliman told him that his country wants to employ Bangladeshi doctors, nurses, technicians and engineers in Libya. The International Organization for Migration's Mobility Tracking survey in Libya identified 17,409 Bangladeshi nationals in the country between February and April 2022. Read More: Libya’s migrant roundup reaches 4,000 amid major crackdown Mobility Tracking in Libya gathers data through key informant interviews at both the municipality and community level on a bi-monthly basis. Of the total migrants identified by key informants in the country in February and April 2022, Bangladeshi migrants made up only three percent of total migrants in the country; however, Bangladeshi nationals accounted for 34 percent of all migrants, including refugees, from South Asia and the Middle East. Ninety-one percent of Bangladeshi migrants used air travel as their means of transportation to Libya. In addition, the average cost of their migration was $2,423. Fifty-four percent of Bangladeshi migrants were identified in western Libya. However, the highest concentration was in Benghazi (33 percent) in the east, followed by Tripoli (20 percent) and Misrata (13 percent) in the west. Read More: Major General Shamim new Ambassador to Libya Turkey was a transit country to reach Libya for more than a third of Bangladeshi migrants (34 percent). Migrants transiting through the UAE and then Turkey reported paying more than those transiting through other countries.

A 5-year-old girl has drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande to enter Texas, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said Tuesday. The girl was attempting to cross the river with her mother Monday, when the current swept her away. The institute said two were from Central America, but did not specify which country. Read: Thousands of migrants headed towards U.S. apply to Mexico for asylum The mother told rescuers she was holding her child, but the current swept her daughter out of her arms. The child’s body was found downstream near Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Four other migrants from South America were also found trapped in the river nearby and taken to safety.

The United States creates migrant crisis against humanity, said a report issued by China's State Council Information Office on Monday. The U.S. government has often interfered in other countries' internal affairs by wielding the club of "human rights." However, its policy of separating migrant children from their families has severely endangered the migrants' lives, dignity, freedom and other human rights, according to the Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2021. Read: A shelling, a young girl, and hopeless moments in a hospital The report pointed out that asylum seekers are subject to police brutality, and immigrant children face prolonged detention and abuse in the United States. U.S. authorities detained more than 1.7 million migrants along the Mexico border during the 2021 fiscal year that ended in September. Among them, up to 80 percent are held in private detention facilities, including 45,000 children.

At least 13 people died after a migrant boat capsized in the Aegean Sea late Friday, bringing to at least 27 the combined death toll from three accidents in as many days involving migrant boats in Greek waters. The sinkings came as smugglers increasingly favor a perilous route from Turkey to Italy, which avoids Greece’s heavily patrolled eastern Aegean islands that for years were at the forefront of the country’s migration crisis. The coast guard said 62 people were rescued after a sailboat capsized late Friday some 8 kilometers (5 miles) off the island of Paros, in the central Aegean. Survivors told the coast guard that about 80 people had been on the vessel. Five coast guard patrol boats, nine private vessels, a helicopter and a military transport plane continued the night-time search for more survivors, authorities said, while coast guard divers also participated. READ: Migrant boat capsizes in English Channel; at least 31 dead Smugglers based in Turkey increasingly have packed yachts with migrants and refugees and sent them toward Italy. Earlier, 11 people were confirmed dead after a sailboat Thursday struck a rocky islet some 235 kilometers (145 miles) south of Athens, near the island of Antikythera. The coast guard said Friday that 90 survivors ‒ 52 men, 11 women and 27 children ‒ were rescued after spending hours on the islet. “People need safe alternatives to these perilous crossings,” the Greek office of the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said in a tweet. In a separate incident Friday, Greek police arrested three people on smuggling charges and detained 92 migrants after a yacht ran aground in the southern Peloponnese region. And a search operation also continued for a third day in the central Aegean, where a boat carrying migrants sank near the island of Folegandros, killing at least three people. Thirteen others were rescued, and the survivors reported that at least 17 people were missing. Authorities said the passengers originally were from Iraq. Greece is a popular entry point into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. But arrivals dropped sharply in the last two years after Greece extended a wall at the Turkish border and began intercepting inbound boats carrying migrants and refugees ‒ a tactic criticized by human rights groups. READ: One drowns, another missing in boat capsize in Chandpur More than 116,000 asylum-seekers crossed the Mediterranean to reach EU countries this year as of Dec. 19, according to UNHCR. The agency said 55% traveled illegally to Italy, 35% to Spain, and 7% to Greece, with the remainder heading to Malta and Cyprus.

A boat carrying migrants capsized in a lake in eastern Turkey on Thursday, killing seven people on board, officials said. At least 64 migrants were rescued.

Dhaka, Aug 25 (UNB) – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday asked the authorities concerned to be mindful so that the people who have gone abroad to attract good luck do not end up being cheated by middlemen.