B. Boochani, ‘I returned to my prison on Manus Island and was stunned by what I saw’, The Guardian, 29 October 2018

D. Webb and N. Blucher, ‘Offshore detention: horrors being deliberately hidden from us’, News.com.au, 30 October 2018

S. Maiden, ‘Why boat-stopper PM let the kids off Nauru’, The New Daily, 4 November 2018

M. Fisher and A. Taub, ‘Trump Wants to Make it Hard to Get Asylum. Other Countries Feel the Same’, The New York Times, 2 November 2018 

L. Carlsen, ‘Why the Refugee Caravan Is So Big—and What We Need to Do About It’, The Nation, 2 November 2018  

E. Sarappo, ‘What asylum means for the U.S. and the Central American migrants who want it’, Pacific Standard, 2 November 2018  

S. Schwartz, ‘No Refuge’, Slate, 31 October 2018  

D. Lind, ‘HIAS, the Jewish refugee-aid group targeted by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, explained by its president’, Vox, 29 October 2018  

S. Sarkar, ‘In transit, but not lost: Rohingya diaspora throws refugees a lifeline’, The Telegraph, 3 November 2018  

The Refugee Council of Australia has reported that cuts in federal financial support to asylum seekers in Australia are leaving many at risk of destitution and homelessness. The report can be found here. Australian authorities are reportedly preventing a baby who was born in detention from being taken out of that detention centre to be baptised in a church. And SBS has reported on the increased rate at which Chinese and Malaysian asylum seekers are appealing the outcome of their protection claims at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

News reports indicate that less than 40 refugee children remain on Nauru. A number are believed to have have been brought to Australia. While former Attorney-General George Brandis told media that all children would be removed from Nauru by the end of this year, the Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton has said that none will be able to permanently settle in Australia. Labor has welcomed the news of transfers but also expressed support for the ban on settlement and has urged the Australian government to consider New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 refugees from Nauru. Newly pre-selected Labor candidate for the federal seat of Bennelong, Dr Brian Owler, is a former head of the Australian Medical Association, and he is now being urged by the group Doctors for Refugees to place medical ethics above party policy on the issue of asylum seekers.

According to The Australian newspaper, Brisbane-based company Canstruct International has had its contract to operate the detention facility on Nauru extended by the Australian government for another six months to April 2019.

Meanwhile, the Australian government is attempting to contest the federal court’s power to order transfers of refugees and asylum seekers from Nauru to Australia. Last week the federal court ordered that further information about the transfer in question be made available before the question of jurisdiction can be determined. The Australian newspaper has reported on how the transfer of refugees from Nauru to Australia is being interpreted by some asylum seekers in Indonesia.

Around 35 refugees staying in Port Moresby for medical treatment have been told they will be sent back to Manus Island to free up accommodation ahead of the forthcoming APEC summit; leading one man to attempt suicide. Meanwhile a forum comprising around 100 professionals, students and representatives of the Catholic Bishops Conference has called for the Australian government to take responsibility for the refugees and asylum seekers on Manus. Last week the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments agreed to transform the former site of the Manus Island detention centre into a joint Australian-PNG naval base.

An official inquiry conducted by the Ugandan government and UNHCR into alleged fraud over refugee numbers has confirmed that figures were exaggerated by 300,000. The inquiry found that Uganda hosts 1.1 million refugees rather than 1.4 million. The investigation followed allegations that senior officials had inflated figures and mismanaged the funds meant to support them. The commissioner for refugees in the Prime Minister’s office and of his three senior staff have been suspended, and new processes that mitigate the risk of fraud have been rolled out. The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) has also released a policy paper that highlights gaps in the implementation of Uganda’s refugee policy and proposed recommendations. The author of the policy paper emphasised that its intention is not to belittle the progress made by Uganda, but to ensure that there is a robust critique to enable it to become much better.

UNHCR has confirmed that six refugees from Sudan's Darfur region have been killed and 10 others wounded in a brawl related to food distribution at the Bredjing camp in eastern Chad. 

Nigerian authorities say that at least eight people have been killed after Boko Haram militants attacked a camp for displaced people in northeast Nigeria. Witnesses place the death toll at 13, and have said that said that dozens of attackers overpowered soldiers guarding the camp, and that fighting continued for two hours.

The Rwandan Ministry of Emergency Management and UNHCR have rolled out an initiative to provide residents of refugee camps with access to financial services such as bank accounts, mobile wallets, consumer loans and savings schemes.

In the leadup to midterm elections, US President Donald Trump claimed last Thursday that he would sign an executive order aimed at restricting US asylum rules, in response to a caravan of Central American asylum seekers heading for the US border. The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) has condemned the proposed policy to restrict asylum, which it says is illegal under both international law and current US law. A class action has been lodged in the US District Court in Washington D.C. by members of the caravan, arguing that the Trump administration’s policies are unconstitutional.

The Department of Defence has ordered over 5000 US troops to the Mexican border, who President Trump has said are working to build ‘massive cities of tents’ along the border to hold asylum seekers who enter the country illegally. Trump also said that he told the troops that if they face rock-throwing asylum seekers, they should react as though the rocks were ‘rifles’, but backtracked from this a day later, saying that rock-throwers would merely be arrested.

The head of the United States Agency for International Development has said that President Trump has yet to follow through on a threat to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but has confirmed that aid is under review.

UNHCR has scaled up protection and assistance at crucial border points in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, in response to an upsurge of Venezuelan asylum seekers seeking to reach Peru and apply for a Temporary Stay Permit before the October 31 deadline. UNHCR reports that so far 100,000 Venezuelans have obtained the permit. The countries in the Lima Group have agreed to grant the status of political refugees to all Venezuelan officials to receive asylum in these states. The agreement applies to all officials who served between 1998 and the present time

Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) data shows that Canada is prioritizing the deportation of asylum seekers who walked across the border from the United States. More than 36,000 people have walked into Canada from the United States to file refugee claims since January 2017. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has reportedly told the CBSA to remove more refugee claimants whose requests for asylum in Canada have been rejected. The CBSA has set a new target of completing 10,000 removals by the end of the 2018-19 fiscal year in March. This would mean an increase of 35 per cent compared to the last two years. Meanwhile, the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board has said that wait times for people who cross into Canada seeking asylum are currently at 21 months, but could grow due to a projected increase in claims.

Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to start the repatriation of Rohingya refugees next month, less than a week after UN investigators warned that there was continuing genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar. UN officials have condemned the deal. UNHCR has said that it was not consulted about the plan, and emphasised that conditions in Rakhine State are ‘not yet conducive’ for the return of refugees. An Indian government spokesperson has said that India is in talks with Bangladesh and Myanmar about a plan to deport around 40,000 Rohingya Muslims, and Saudi Arabia has asked Bangladesh to take back 128 Rohingya who have expired visas, and who entered on Bangladeshi passports.

The EU has announced plans for a ‘smart lie-detection system’ at its busiest borders in an attempt to identify illegal migrants. The ‘lie detector’ will be trialled in Hungary, Greece and Latvia, and involves the use of a computer animation of a border guard, personalised to the traveller’s gender, ethnicity and language, asking questions via a webcam. Experts have reportedly criticized the project, claiming that it would produce unfair outcomes.

The European Commission has criticized Austria and Hungary for deciding not to sign the UN Global Compact on Migration. The Austrian government announced last Wednesday that it would not sign the compact because it feared this would lead to ‘a human right to migration’, a claim dismissed by the UN.

Recent figures reveal that only 20 unaccompanied children have been allowed into the UK under the Home Office’s Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme (VCRS), which was announced in 2016 to resettle 3,000 vulnerable refugee children from conflict zones in the Middle East and north Africa. The VCRS is the only way for unaccompanied youngsters from outside Europe to legally move to the UK. Meanwhile, UK government ministers have said that EU victims of human trafficking and modern slavery would have to pay a fee to remain in the UK after it leaves the European Union.

The people of the Greek island of Lesbos are reportedly poised to receive the inaugural John McCain Prize for Leadership in Public Service for their response to the refugee crisis. In 2016, the islanders were nominated by a group of academics for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A United Nations aid convoy has reportedly reached Rukban refugee camp in Syria, next to the border with Jordan, where thousands of people are stranded. It is the first time since January that the displaced Syrians in the camp have received aid.

Lebanon’s ministry of refugee affairs believes at least 20 Syrian refugees who returned to their country have been killed by the Syrian army and allied paramilitary groups in recent months. Lebanon’s caretaker Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Mouin Merehbi has said that reports of killings by pro-government forces in Syria have been submitted since June. Merehbi said he has no evidence to suggest that the killings are targeted or systematic, but that they underscore the continuing insecurity and lawlessness in Syria, including in government-controlled areas. UNHCR has warned that it is too early to discuss large-scale returns of refugees to Syria as insecurity may lead to a second wave of displacement.

Qatar has reportedly enacted its first law on refugee asylum, a move that has been praised by Human Rights Watch.