Migration

The ex-Oklahoma state trooper’s nomination had stalled in the Senate as ICE faced growing scrutiny over its operations.

The White House has withdrawn the nomination of former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer to lead United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), without giving a reason for the decision.

The withdrawal was announced on Thursday. Schroyer, a senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, was nominated by President Donald Trump in June but had yet to receive a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who chairs the committee, had refused to hold a hearing until the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided information he had requested about civilian deaths during ICE enforcement operations.

“I don’t have a concern with who the nominee was. I had asked them to give me an update on the internal investigation into civilian deaths,” Paul told The Associated Press news agency.

Paul said he had intended to hold a hearing on Schroyer’s nomination but learned that it had been withdrawn when the White House made the decision public.

ICE remains under scrutiny

Schroyer had little experience in immigration and had not previously worked at ICE or led a major law enforcement agency. Two US officials told the Reuters news agency when he was nominated that he had been a surprise choice for the position.

When announcing Schroyer’s nomination in June, Trump said on Truth Social that he had “firsthand experience getting Illegal Aliens OFF our streets” and called on the Senate to confirm him “IMMEDIATELY”.

The withdrawal comes as ICE remains under scrutiny over its enforcement operations as the Trump administration carries out its immigration crackdown.

Critics have raised questions about how the agency has recruited and trained officers as it rapidly expanded its workforce. Federal immigration officers have also shot and killed multiple people during enforcement operations, including two US citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.

ICE arrests have continued to increase, reaching nearly 51,000 in August, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second administration.

ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2017. David Venturella is serving as acting director after Todd Lyons resigned earlier this year.

The White House has not indicated when it might announce another nominee to lead the agency.

Sydney: Australia will reduce migration by curbing “visa hopping”, tightening rules on students and working holiday makers as well as cracking down on overstayers, its interior minister said Thursday, as the far-right surges in the polls.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told the National Press Club in Canberra that immigration was “fundamentally a strength” for Australia, but accepted that housing pressures required changes.

He denied his ruling Labor party was tightening visa rules in response to the rise of One Nation, which has become one of the country’s most popular parties this year with pledges to drastically slash migration. Business groups warned such cuts would cause economic damage.

“We need immigration to soften enough that housing has a chance to catch up,” he said, while stressing the housing shortage was not caused by migrants.

Net overseas migration – the net gain or loss to the population through movement to and from Australia – reached a peak of 538,000 in 2022 after a surge in arrivals when borders re-opened after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Numbers fell to 292,100 in the year to March, data on Thursday showed.

Burke said this was 47 percent below the post-Covid peak — and that policy changes would help to reach a target of 225,000 for next year.

Australians want to know the government was “taking control” of migration but also “being decent about it”, he said.

Students are the largest group of arrivals, with 753,000 international students in Australia, most from China and India, data shows.

Under the new rules, family members seeking to join students in Australia will face new curbs and it will become harder for students to move between courses to extend their stay, Burke said.

A backlog of applications from the UK for working holiday visas would continue to be processed slowly after a record 80,000 applications — a matter that is under discussion with the UK government, he said.

Working holiday makers in rural areas will enter a ballot to stay for a second or third year, with just 5,000 visas available for the latter.

Family members seeking to visit Australians will have “no further stay” conditions attached to their temporary visas.

Migrants with construction and housing skills will be prioritised for visas, he said.

Australia would return to a policy of a decade earlier in which visa overstayers were given two weeks to leave the country or face detention and deportation, he said.

An additional 100 compliance officers and 250 more beds in immigration detention centres would show there are consequences to overstaying a visa, he said.

But he stressed “this is not the sort of operation that some people have seen on TV happening in other countries” — a nod to hardline immigration policies in the United States.

A third of Australia’s resident population of 27.6 million was born overseas, the latest census data shows.

At least 51 people rescued as search operation continues off the island of Gavnos near Crete.

One person has died, 25 are missing and 51 people have been rescued after a boat carrying migrants sank off a Greek island near Crete, according to the country’s coastguard.

“Fifty-one were picked up by two boats that were in the area,” a coastguard spokesman said on Monday.

He said survivors had reported that 77 people were on board when the boat went down near the island of Gavdos.

Search and rescue efforts were ongoing, with four ships, boats, Frontex aircraft and a coastguard helicopter operating in the area, Greece’s public broadcaster ERT News reported.

The 51 rescued people were due to be brought to Crete, “where the prescribed procedures will be followed”, ERT reported.

After arriving in Crete, undocumented migrants generally face immediate arrest and temporary confinement before being transferred to closed detention camps on the Greek mainland. Under Greek law, individuals are subject to extended administrative detention, severe penalties and fast-track deportation.

Strong winds blowing through the area have been hampering the search operation, ERT said.

Crete and Gavdos, about 320km (200 miles) from the Libyan coast, have become the main point of entry for asylum seekers in Greece.

In late August, Greece’s ANA news agency published figures from the Ministry of Migration and Asylum that indicated that migrant arrivals in the country fell from about 61,000 in the year to August 2025 to 42,000 in the following 12 months – a decline of about 31 percent.

Greece’s conservative government in July suspended all asylum claims for migrants arriving by sea from North Africa for three months, a move it argued helped deter crossings.

The ban passed in parliament amid a surge in asylum seekers reaching Crete and after talks with Libya’s Benghazi-based government to stem the flow were cancelled in July.

The government remains at odds with regional authorities in Crete over a plan to build a permanent transit facility on the island. It is preparing draft legislation that would mandate imprisonment for people whose asylum claims are denied and require ankle monitors during a 30-day compliance period before deportation.

Authorities in Europe have tightened their immigration rules over recent years as far-right, anti-immigrant political parties have won increasing support throughout the continent.

Greece has been in discussions with Germany and several other European Union countries on setting up “return hubs” outside the bloc for processing migrants’ claims.

Srinagar: Every spring, mason Mohammad Ghulam Sarwar boards a train to Indian Kashmir, seeking higher wages despite the risk of being targeted by militants in the disputed Himalayan region.

Sarwar, 25, is one of an estimated half a million migrant workers who stream into the Himalayan region each year, forming the backbone of an economy increasingly reliant on labour from some of India’s poorest states.

The dependence has endured despite decades of insurgency and a series of militant attacks that have made migrant workers vulnerable targets.

Since 2019, at least 24 migrant workers have been killed in militant attacks across the territory, according to local media reports.

More than 1500 people were killed in the same period, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 219 of them civilians.

The latest attack last month saw gunmen shoot dead two brick kiln workers from the central state of Chhattisgarh.

But for workers like Sarwar, the rewards outweigh the risks.

“Kashmir is real paradise. I will keep coming every year for as long as I have the strength to work,” Sarwar, from the eastern state of Bihar, told AFP.

While millions of Indians seek jobs in the Gulf, some workers say Kashmir offers nearly comparable earnings without the costs and complications of overseas migration.

Sarwar earns 1,200 rupees ($12) a day in Kashmir, compared with about 700 rupees in Bihar for the same work, if he could find any at all.

The Muslim-majority region, battling some of India’s highest unemployment rates, has become increasingly dependent on outsiders to perform jobs that many locals consider menial, including domestic work, agriculture and construction.

Local businesses say they struggle to find workers willing or able to take up many jobs.

“Outside the handicrafts sector there is not nearly enough local skilled labour available in Kashmir,” said Mohammad Ashraf Mir of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“We see a rising dependence on migrant workers, tending towards absolute dependence.”

Waiting to be hired

Each morning, groups of labourers gather at prominent squares in the main city of Srinagar, waiting to be hired.

Most stay for about eight months before departing ahead of Kashmir’s harsh winter, when construction slows and agricultural activity dwindles.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947, while an insurgency against Indian rule that erupted in 1989 has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Although the rebellion has been largely weakened in recent years, sporadic attacks continue.

Sarwar said he saw a barber from his home state shot dead by suspected rebels some years ago.

While he was saddened by the incident, it failed to deter him.

“Life and death are in the hands of God,” he said.

“If I remain fearful, I will have nothing. But if I overcome, I will have everything.”

Sarwar shares a building in Srinagar with around 200 other labourers. Some 7-10 workers squeeze into tiny rooms, sleeping and cooking in the same cramped space while paying little more than five dollars a month each.

Outside, security is conspicuous.

Paramilitary troops, armoured vehicles and police special operations units patrol streets. CCTV cameras monitor the compound around the clock.

“They have been soft targets for the terrorists in the past,” a senior security official said on condition of anonymity.

“But security arrangements for them have become robust over time.”

‘Feels peaceful’

Police encourage labourers to live in clusters and avoid venturing out after dark.

A labourer from West Bengal said many Hindu workers adopt Muslim-sounding names while in Kashmir, fearing that displaying their religion could make them targets.

Rebel groups say they target migrant workers to avenge police harassment of their families.

Many labourers are reluctant to discuss security concerns publicly.

“I face no troubles here,” said Mohammad Iqbal, a 53-year-old painter from Uttar Pradesh state who has worked in Kashmir since before the insurgency began and is now accompanied by his son.

“It feels peaceful.”

Others are more candid.

“I am afraid of terrorists here,” said Shahid Sofi, a 24-year-old mason from Bihar who previously worked in Delhi and Mumbai.

“But overall working conditions here are good, the weather is good, and I like working in the wide, open spaces of Kashmir.”