The construction of the Department of Immigration and Border protection (2014-2017) and Department of Home Affairs (2017-) and Australian Border Force (2015) was based on the explicit message that immigration was no longer a nation-building operation, but a junior part of a threat mitigation organisation. The cult of the border and Operation Sovereign Borders ruled supreme. There was more talk about the importance of guns for Australian Border Force members than client service.
Thousands of Australian visa decisions may be affected by high court ruling, experts warn. By Paul Karp, The Guardian
A majority of judges of the high court found that home affairs department decisions in line with the 2016 instruction not to send cases to the minister unless they met subjective criteria were not consistent with the Migration Act, which gives the power to intervene to the minister “personally”.
Political prisoners': Palm Sunday protesters demand visas for refugees stuck in limbo, SBS Source: AAP
Protesters in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne held placards reading, "Permanent visas for all" and "10 years too long", and accusing the government of "using refugees as political prisoners".
Rallies were also planned for other capitals and major regional centres.
We provided health care for children in immigration detention. This is what we found, The Conversation
While the last children were released from locked detention at the end of 2018, Australian law and policy still mandate detention for children arriving without visas. While the government refers to “held” or “locked” “detention”, to be plain, these children were imprisoned for seeking asylum.
We have just published a study describing the health of asylum-seeker children who experienced detention attending our Refugee Health Clinic over the past ten years.
Our team has been seeing refugee children for more than 20 years. We have extensive experience in refugee health, forensic medicine and child development, but nothing prepared us for the complexity of looking after these children.
Female judges in Afghanistan seek resettlement, Patricia Karvelas & Dr Elizabeth Biok, ABC RN Breakfast
After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, hundreds of men were released from prison
Many had been sentenced by women judges, who worried about their safety applied for resettlement overseas. A number of women and their families have made it to Australia but many are still waiting to hear if they will be allowed to come here.
Guest:Dr Elizabeth Biok, Secretary General, International Commission of Jurists - Australia
Almost 90% of children brought from Nauru suffered physical health problem – study, by Ben Doherty, The Guardian
Nearly nine in 10 children brought from offshore processing on Nauru to Australia were suffering physical health conditions, including malnutrition and dental disease, while almost 80% reported one or more mental health symptoms, new research has revealed.
Nearly half – 45% – had reported suicidal ideation, a suicide attempt, or self-harm.
It’s time Labor ended cruel refugee visa ‘limbo’, By Prof John Minns, City News Canberra
“I didn’t think anything could be worse than the five long years on Nauru, but honestly, the life in Australia where we have no hope of a future is killing us, slowly,” a refugee mother tells John Minns.
This time last year, Sahar Ghasemi was a happy young woman. Like thousands of others around Australia she was starting university.
She had won a scholarship to pay her fees for an arts/law degree. Seven weeks into her first semester, she turned 18. Then she was disenrolled – her visa doesn’t allow her to study in Australia after that age.
It’s time Labor ended cruel refugee visa ‘limbo’, By Prof John Minns, City News Canberra
‘Stop the boats’: Sunak’s anti-asylum slogan echoes Australia’s harsh policy. By Ben Doherty, The Guardian
“Stop the boats.” The white-on-red slogan on Rishi Sunak’s podium on Tuesday was – word for word – the slogan used by Tony Abbott to win the Australian prime ministership a decade ago.
To Australian audiences, so much of the rhetoric emerging from the UK over its small boats policy is reminiscent of two decades of a toxic domestic debate.
Going home to Biloela - The Saturday Paper. By Rebekah Holt
“Girls understand watching the TV,” Priya says. “Girls understand the green and blue and red. Kopika understand red colour is a win, I go back to Biloela.”
Morrison’s boat turnback blitz on election day was his final act of political bastardry: Crikey. By Michael Bradley
It’s perfectly fitting that Scott Morrison’s final official act as prime minister should have been one of pure self-interested political bastardry at the expense of vulnerable people. Stick that on his headstone — it’s all he deserves.
Instructing Border Force to publicise the turnback of an asylum seeker boat from Sri Lanka was transparently revolting, but will there be consequences? ……………
Refugees resettled in New Zealand from Australia to be permanently banned from returning: The Guardian Paul Karp and Tess McClure
The home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, revealed on Tuesday that Australia will prevent the resettlement deal for 450 refugees from becoming a “back door” by stopping would-be travellers at the border.
In an interview with Radio National Andrews struggled to explain how such a ban would be enforced, after home affairs department officials warned in March legislation would probably be required.
Australia to take in 16,500 more refugees from Afghanistan at cost of $666 million. By Stephen Dziedzic and Annika Burgess, ABC News
It's the most significant, one-off increase to Australia's humanitarian program since Tony Abbott offered an additional 12,000 places to Syrian and Iraqi refugees over two years in 2015, after catastrophic conflict in the region.
However, it will still not bring the annual humanitarian uptake to the same level it was before the pandemic, in 2018-19, when the government had a target of 18,750 places.
Death of asylum seeker in Villawood detention centre to be investigated: SBS
According to activist group the Refugee Action Coalition, an Iranian asylum seeker was found dead in his room in a compound of the detention centre in NSW at around 1.00pm on Saturday.
RAC said the man was aged in his late 30s and had been detained in Villawood for two years.
Death of asylum seeker in Villawood detention centre to be investigated: SBS
The government’s nine-year wait to accept New Zealand’s offer of refugee resettlement is yet another stain on Australia’s soul. By Rachel Withers, The Monthly
The Morrison government has finally accepted New Zealand’s offer to resettle some of the refugees stuck in Australia’s torturous immigration system – nine long, cruel and pointless years after it was first made. Under the three-year agreement, announced by the two governments today, 450 refugees (150 per year) will be settled in New Zealand, with priority given to about 100 people still on Nauru. This deal is objectively good news (a “blessed, belated relief” as Greens immigration spokesperson Nick McKim put it), although, as Asylum Seeker Resource Centre advocacy director Jana Favero notes, there are still more than 500 other detainees left in limbo. But several questions must be asked here. Why did it take so many years for the government to take up this simple, humanitarian, moral option? Why is it happening now? And who will be held accountable for the needless suffering, the years lost, the lives destroyed, and the billions in wasted costs that occurred thanks to the government’s cynical delay? When it comes to Australia’s offshore detention regime, it’s long been difficult to shake the feeling that the cruelty is the point.
Morrison government finally accepts deal with New Zealand to resettle refugees. By Michelle Grattan, The Conversation
Andrews was anxious to stress the government’s tough border policy had not changed. No one who came illegally by boat would ever be allowed to settle here, she said.
“This arrangement does not apply to anyone who attempts an illegal maritime journey to Australia in the future,” she said.
“Anyone who attempts to breach our borders will be turned back or sent to Nauru.”
Asylum seekers released from Melbourne detention hotel with no access to support or welfare: The New Daily, Emily Woods
The Refugee Action Collective said most of the men had been given six-month bridging visas with no access to welfare and little support.
“They have been released to a cheap motel, on a long weekend, with almost no support,” the RAC’s Chris Breen said.
“After eight years in detention, they have been traumatised, institutionalised, denied education and the ability to work and gain skills.
“They should be granted permanent visas, compensated, and given full support, not dumped in the community to fend for themselves.”
Nine refugees released from Melbourne’s Park hotel face uncertain future
Nine more refugees who have been detained for several years have been released from Melbourne’s Park hotel, however those freed remain uncertain about whether they will be allowed to permanently live in Australia.
There are understood to be 18 refugees who remain in the Park hotel – where the world No 1 tennis player Novak Djokovic was detained before being deported from Australia in January.
Nine refugees released from Melbourne’s Park hotel face uncertain future
Nauru detention centre operator makes $101m profit – at least $500,000 for each detainee: Ben Doherty & Ben Butler, The Guardian
The Canstruct group, or entities associated with it, have made 11 donations to the Liberal National party in Queensland. The company has previously strenuously denied any link between political donations and the awarding of any contracts.
Canstruct International’s Nauru contract has attracted significant parliamentary interest and repeated questioning in the Senate.
Refugees from Afghanistan rally at Parliament House to demand permanent residency: By Rayane Tamer, SBS
Demonstrators from across the country have turned up at Parliament House demanding the federal government provide permanent living options for refugees who have fled Afghanistan.
Hazara refugee Zaki Haidari arrived in Australia in 2012 after fleeing his home country and was granted a temporary protection visa.
Ten years later, he says he has no adequate pathway of permanently resettling in Australia, the country he now considers home.
Indefinite detention is a disgrace: We must vote to end it: by Hannah Thomas
THE GOAL OF Australia’s mandatory detention policy appears to be the systematic, slow-motion destruction of individual refugees to warn persecuted peoples thousands of miles away that Australia is hostile territory.
Indefinite detention is a disgrace: We must vote to end it: by Hannah Thomas