An immigration scam was uncovered in the United Kingdom last week after over 100 institutions in England and Wales were exposed as bogus colleges and universities.  According to The Guardian, police are expected to trace the operators of the colleges and the “students” who used their addresses to enter the country illegally on student visas.  Two months ago, the compilation of a register of legitimate institutions for higher learning began.  The United Kingdom’s education secretary announced last Friday that any student applying to come to Britain to study at a college not on the register would not be allowed into Britain.

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Foreign adoption was banned last week in Romania in an effort to end baby auctions.  The law stipulates that children can be adopted abroad only by their grandparents and only after every attempt has been made to keep them with their immediate family or place them with another Romanian family.

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Germany's Social Democrats-Greens government and the conservative opposition finalized a legislative bill Thursday for major reforms in the country's immigration rules.

The new immigration law covers enticements to highly skilled foreigners, calls for better efforts to integrate foreigners in German society, reforms the rules on granting asylum on humanitarian grounds and allows for quicker ways to expel those foreigners deemed to be a security threat. The draft bill must pass the federal parliament, the Bundestag, as well as the opposition-controlled federal assembly representing the 16 states, the Bundesrat.