The Dutch are marking the fifth anniversary of the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim fanatic, a brutal killing that continues to shape politics in the Netherlands.

A Richmond-based technology company has been ordered to pay $147,433 in back wages to 56 employees working in the United States under a foreign-worker visa program, the U.S. Labor Department said yesterday. The agency said an investigation by its wage and hour division found that Materials Software System Inc., a software-development and IT consulting company, failed to pay proper wages and equal benefits to workers hired as computer programmers under the federal H-1B program.

French police cleared out then bulldozed a squalid, sprawling forest camp known as the “jungle” near the northern city of Calais on Tuesday, detaining hundreds of illegal migrants who had hoped to slip across the English Channel into Britain.

A human rights group on Monday accused Italy of forcibly returning would-be migrants to Libya, failing to screen them for possible asylum requests and exposing them to abuse in the North African country.

Three families reflect on their new freedoms. Abdul Karim Dumbuya, who has been reunited with wife and son after the strife of Sierra Leone, considers himself “blesed and lucky.“

My husband and I recently met a new VCU graduate. The young man is a native of southern Sudan and one of the Lost Boys. Today he is an American citizen and a registered voter, eager for his voice to be heard. The story of the Lost Boys of Sudan is an incredible tale of suffering and human endurance. During the Sudanese civil war (1983-2005) nearly 30,000 children were orphaned or displaced when Islamist government forces descended upon and brutally wiped out Christian villages in southern Sudan. Young boys were able to escape into surrounding jungles. Others were away tending crops or herds when the pillaging occurred. Sadly, their sisters were rarely so fortunate.

The Rev. Antonio Marques, pastor of Iglesia Communidad Evangelica in Glen Allen, has been educating his Spanish-speaking congregation about the benefits of filling out census forms. But he also has been telling those church members who are living in the area illegally that providing census data doesn’t bring them any benefits and that it might bring consequences later.

Rescuers were searching the ocean off Florida Thursday for survivors after a boat carrying about 30 people — many of them Haitian immigrants seeking to escape their country’s crushing poverty — capsized and sank.

Some news organizations have done some soul-searching about what to call Ingmar Guandique, the Salvadoran recently charged in the 2001 killing of Chandra Levy. Calling him an “illegal immigrant” is problematic; although he entered the U.S. illegally, he sought temporary protected status offered to Salvadorans by President Bush, and had received permission to live and work in the U.S. while his paperwork was pending.

Virginia’s illegal immigrant population doubled since 2000 to an estimated 300,000 in 2008, according to a new study released today by the Pew Hispanic Center. The study also says the rapid growth of illegal immigrants has slowed. The center estimates that the state’s labor force includes about 210,000 illegal immigrants, or about 5.1 percent of workers. About 4 percent of the state’s total population of 7.7 million is made up of illegal immigrants, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group that reports on Latinos’ growing impact on the nation.

Protesters recently descended on Farmville to oppose the location there of a detention facility for illegal immigrants. The protesters made all the usual arguments, and some novel ones. One protester carried a sign reading, “We are indigenous with the right to migrate everywhere in our continent!“ Interesting theory. Does it mean an indigenous New Yorker could move to Canada, or Mexico, or Honduras, without obeying those countries’ laws? Not bloody likely.

Federal prosecutors say a Virginia man has pleaded guilty to harboring illegal immigrants from Indonesia, keeping as many as 11 in his basement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has suspended placing detainees at the Piedmont Regional Jail and is investigating the facility’s medical care.

Chesterfield County is looking at ways to limit the number of people living under a single roof. Planning commissioners this week directed staff members to work up a draft ordinance by April that would limit the number of occupants based on the home’s square footage. Current Chesterfield zoning law allows as many as four unrelated people to live in one home, including up to two “roomers” who can rent rooms from the homeowner, but there is no cap on the total number in each house. The suggested changes would set a cap on the number who live in a house—even if they are related.

More than 100 immigrants and their supporters marched through Prince William County yesterday to protest policies they say have torn apart families, caused racial tension and made them fearful of reporting crimes. With chants in Spanish of “Justice!“ and “Stop police brutality,“ the immigrant advocacy group Mexicans Without Borders demanded that county officials rescind a 2007 resolution that allows county police to enforce federal immigration law and denies some public services to illegal immigrants. They say the policy, which drew national attention, has created strife between Hispanic immigrants and police.