A group of asylum seekers who attempted to arrive in Australia by boat has been sent to Nauru just months after the last people were removed from immigration detention on the Pacific nation.
Guardian Australia understands that a group of asylum seekers was intercepted in September and taken to Nauru. Staff of International Health and Medical Services have been asked to work on Nauru to provide health services to the cohort, believed to number 11.
In June Guardian Australia revealed that the last of the detainees on Nauru were being moved off, although that detention centre will be kept open at a cost of $350m a year.
According to the most recent statistics for July, released in September, there were still 37 detainees on Christmas Island’s north-west point immigration detention centre.
But an Australian Border Force spokesperson said it “can confirm that the final transfer of immigration detainees from Christmas Island to the Australian mainland has occurred”.
For the last seven years, Hussaini has been a volunteer with the local SES station.
"This is a second family," he tells SBS News.
"With this limbo life I’ve been through for 11 years, waiting to get a piece of paper, a permanent visa, if I didn’t have the SES around me, I might not be here right now and standing here talking to you."
When floods devastated the regionlast year, Hussaini was on hand for months, working through Christmas and New Year's Eve to not only provide flood assistance but also information to the local ref ugee community.
It was hard for Priya to stay positive after multiple deportation attempts. In detention, her children, Kopika and Tharnicaa, faced a litany of health concerns, including rotting teeth, language delays and behavioural issues.
Priya has written her full story with the journalist Rebekah Holt in a new book, Home to Biloela: The Story of the Tamil Family that Captured our Hearts.
“When I was writing this book, the main challenge was going through the painful memories. Despite this, I wanted to tell the struggles refugees go through, and that’s what motivated me to keep going,” Priya says.
“The party is over: the rorts and loopholes that have plagued this system will be shut down,” Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said.
“This is the first of many announcements this week to restore integrity to international education and to our migration system.”
‘Party’s over for rorters’: Government cracks down on visa scams. By Matthew Knott, SMH
The Australian Department of Immigration has kept at least 10,000 people in uncertainty since 2013. Sovereign Borders policy was incubated even earlier. Refugees say that they found the culture of the Department “unhelpful”. Given the values displayed in actions and texts of suspended long-term General-Secretary of Home Affairs, Michael Pezzullo, this will come as little surprise. He was right-hand enabler of right-wing Immigration Ministers from 2014 and in Border Control before that.
The Home Affairs Department told the Senate in July that it had paid an undisclosed amount of Australian taxpayers’ money to the PNG government in December 2021 to deal with what it called the “residual caseload”. The money was paid as part of a “confidential bilateral arrangement” when the decade-long regional resettlement arrangement with Papua New Guinea formally ended on December 31, 2021.
Vanessa Redgrave has donated £4,000 to a legal fund challenging the Home Office’s use of the controversial Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate asylum seekers.
The actor and human rights campaigner has been an outspoken critic of the government’s policy to house asylum seekers on the barge in Portland, Dorset.
The Bibby Stockholm has been empty since 11 August when asylum seekers, who had been onboard for just four days, were evacuated after the discovery of deadly legionella bacteria.
Vanessa Redgrave gives £4,000 to Bibby Stockholm legal fight. By Diane Taylor, The Guardian UK
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has today expressed serious concerns about an unfolding crisis in Port Moresby with refugees and people seeking asylum forced to Papua New Guinea a decade ago, as well as their families, now being cut off from critical support services and evicted from accommodation.
Perhaps the Pezzullo case is a line in the sand moment, where the Public Service Act and the High Court’s affirmation of the need for an apolitical public service, are taken more seriously than has been in the case in recent years.
Amidst the shattered remnants of an impartial public service. By Greg Barns, Pearls & Irritations
Over 180 migrant and cultural organisations have expressed support for the Voice, and work has been done on both sides of the debate to engage communities. But after speaking with people on the ground, SBS has found that understanding is not widespread.
Yes, No or I don’t know: Does Australia really know about the Voice? By Emma Brancatisano, SBS News
Queer asylum seekers are not only caught in the same bureaucratic and financial tangles as other refugees, most often they cannot fall back on their diasporic communities for support. Someone who has fled their homelands because of persecution based on sexuality or gender identity is unlikely to find much sympathy from their compatriots in Australia. Often queer asylum seekers are fleeing their families, sometimes in fear of their lives. Many will tell you that they also feel unwelcome in the established queer communities within Australia.
Refuge for queer asylum seekers. By Dennis Altman, The Monthly
The repatriation of women and children from a Syrian refugee camp last year is strong evidence of the Commonwealth's control over their detention, lawyers for another group of women fighting to return to Australia have argued.
A trial has begun in the Federal Court in a case brought on behalf of 11 women and 20 children seeking to be returned to Australia from detention in the al-Roj camp in northern Syria.
The reports made public hundreds of encrypted messages between Mr Pezzullo and Liberal Party member Scott Briggs over more than five years, including some that were disparaging of senior public servants and politicians including Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop and Marise Payne.
Mr Pezzullo made no comment on Monday. Deputy secretary Stephanie Foster will lead the department while he is stood aside.
Home Affairs boss stands aside for investigation of texts leak . By Tom McIlroy, Financial Review
The Age and 60 Minutes first revealed the series of texts between Pezzullo and Liberal powerbroker, Scott Briggs, in which the home affairs secretary disparaged senior Coalition ministers and advocated for a right winger to be minister responsible for his department.
On Monday the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, revealed that home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, had asked that Pezzullo “stand aside” while an investigation took place.
The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes reveal a cache of messages Michael Pezzullo sent to a Liberal powerbroker in a bid to promote conservatives, oust enemies and revamp the national security regime.
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Zainab Al-Sweedy arrived in Australia as a child refugee after a seven-day voyage.
She said her experiences in a detention centre had inspired her to study law.
She was recently selected as Young Lawyer of the Year for South Australia.
Some information from Refugee Council of Australia about curent situation for people with temporary and permanent visas.
Family reunion still out of reach for refugees granted permanent visas. Refugee Council of Australia
It’s a difficult moment for Melbourne father Sulaiman Anwarzai whenever loved ones call from overseas.
Not only is Anwarzai supporting his young family in Australia on a low income, he’s also financially helping the family he left behind in Afghanistan to survive.
“It is hard - we can’t do this on a regular basis, because you know, it's difficult,” he told SBS News, referring to the remittances
Anwarzai arrived in Australia less than two years ago with his wife and three children, after the Taliban took over his home country.
Why this community feels the cost of living crisis harder than others, SBS By Rashida Yosufzai
Afghan community members and former Afghan Locally Engaged Employees (LEEs) say they are "disheartened" with the high rate of rejection of humanitarian visas and are demanding the government reverse its decisions and grant the visas.
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