immigration

A group of migrant workers abandon their attempt to cross into the United States near Douglas, Arizona, and head back to the town of Agua Prieta, Mexico, in this photo taken in 2005. This year, they might not even have come. Find out why.

Ransford Scott from Jamaica picks Cortland apples in New Hampshire. The food industry in the United States depends on immigrant labour for this boring work — and because immigrants are willing to work for little money, companies are able to keep food prices low.

In only 15 years, South Africa lost 20 per cent of its professionals — about 800,000 people — to emigration. White South Africans saw few opportunities at home and better pay abroad. But the 2010 World Cup began to change all that. South Africans are coming home.

A Hispanic farmworker clears an irrigation ditch in a cornfield in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The agricultural labor force in the US is largely foreign-born Hispanics, of whom 77 per cent are from Mexico. In recent years, a growing number have come from Guatemala and Honduras.

The Irish government is planning to introduce certificates of Irish heritage for as many as 70 million people of Irish descent around the world. It is expected that many descendants of Irish emigrants would wish to buy one to display in their homes.

A New York hotel has created a new travel niche: birth tourism. The Marmara Manhattan offers "an exclusive package for new mothers who wish to give birth in the USA," with the additional bonus of the newborn child getting US citizenship.