UK Home Office plans to toughen immigration rules in major overhaul News
UK Home Office plans to toughen immigration rules in major overhaul

[JURIST] The UK Home Office [official website] announced plans to overhaul Britain's immigration system [press release] Tuesday in a review [PDF text] outlining how the Home Office's Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) [official website] will respond to the impact of globalization, changing travel patterns and evolving international crime and terrorism. The review recommends implementing identification cards, including biometric visas [eGov backgrounder] for foreign nationals by 2008; performing border checks before residents leave their home nations; counting the number of people that enter and exit by 2014; handling 90 percent of asylum claims within 6 months; and strictly enforcing laws banning employers from hiring illegal residents.

Home Secretary John Reid [official profile] told the UK House of Commons [official website] Tuesday that the planned overhaul came in response to weaknesses identified in the IND, particularly when Prime Minister Tony Blair fired former Home Secretary Charles Clarke [JURIST report] after authorities freed more than 1,000 foreign criminals [BBC timeline; JURIST report] at the end of their prison sentences without considering deportation. BBC News has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN Security Council called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in Six Days' War

On November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied during the Six Days' War, and for respect of the right of all States in the area to "live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries." Read Resolution 242, which remains a cornerstone of efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.

President Kennedy assassinated, VP Lyndon Johnson sworn inin

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Later that day, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States. Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was later tasked with leading a commission to investigate the assassination. President Johnson received the final report of the Warren Commission on September 24, 1964. Read the Warren Commission Report.