Former Coalition immigration minister Alex Hawke has joined calls for the government to resolve the status of thousands of asylum seekers on bridging visas.
A group of around 8,000 asylum seekers who arrived between 2012 and 2013 and whose claims were rejected under a now abolished system remain in legal limbo.
The Department of Home Affairs says people with new, credible claims relating to their asylum applications may request ministerial intervention.
They were once the most famous refugee family in Australia. But where are they now? Checking in with the Nadesalingams – the Tamil family from the small Queensland town of Biloela who were at the centre of one of the country’s biggest people-power movements of recent years.
What happened to the Biloela asylum-seeker family? | Australian Story, ABC News In-Depth
Groups of Australians are planning to demonstrate on 31 August for the controversial 'March For Australia' protests, which call for an end to what organisers describe as reclamation of Australia's identity and "mass migration".
Supporters argue the protests represent concerns about Australia's future and immigration levels.
But experts have warned that the "anti-immigration protests" stem from misinformation and fear, rather than evidence that migrants are responsible for the country's social and economic challenges.
Home affairs wrongfully detained an Australian citizen because of an administration error, the commonwealth ombudsman has revealed, while another person with a valid visa was incorrectly held for 18 months in immigration detention.
The ombudsman’s report (Righting Wrongful Detention), released on Wednesday, also found home affairs wrongfully detained 11 people last financial year due to mistakes that could have been avoided, amid a culture of “act first, check later”.
The latest Department of Home Affairs top structure chart reveals that the government has given effect to its promise, made in early June, to establish a Commonwealth Office of Multicultural Affairs.
The new Commonwealth office of Multicultural Affairs unveiled. By Peter Hughes, Pearls & Irritations
The tourist sees the name Priya Nades Kitchen on the side of the food van as he passes through the Queensland town of Biloela, stops the car and turns back.
It's not just the promise of a vegetable samosa that lures him but those names — names forever linked to this gutsy town and one of the most turbulent chapters in Australian immigration history.
"Are you the famous Priya and Nades?" the man from Armidale, NSW, asks the food vendors as Australian Story captures the moment.
In the weeks following the June 2025 Iran-Israel conflict, a new crisis has unfolded across Iran's eastern border. The Iranian government launched a sweeping deportation campaign targeting undocumented Afghan nationals, accusing them of ties to Israeli intelligence and drone manufacturing inside the country.
More than 700,000 undocumented Afghans have been pushed out since 13 June, according to the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR.
Refugees without refuge: Afghans in Iran. By Faryaneh Fadaeiresketi, The New Humanitarian
As we GrandmothersForRefugeesNSW get older and loose mobility, though never spirit, some of us managed to participate in this historic March for Humanity. It was cold, wet, and at times really hard, however as always we persevered……..
Last Sunday, tens of thousands marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of Gaza. But exactly how many people were there depends on whom you ask.
Police put it at about 90,000. Organisers claimed up to 300,000. Other reports and expert estimates landed somewhere in-between.
Why are these accounts so different and how hard is it, really, to estimate the size of a crowd?
Arriving in Australia in the 1980s, migrant women applying for work at the country's largest steelworks were rejected on the basis of their sex.
Their rejection sowed the seeds of one of the largest anti-discrimination cases in Australian history, paving the way for women to work for BHP at Port Kembla in New South Wales for the first time.
Behind the landmark case was the Jobs for Women campaign, started by women who met at the newly formed migrant centre.
Months after the excitement of receiving their university offers, these international students have had no updates or clarity about their visas and when they'll be able to study in Australia.
Blaming migrants for housing shortages in Australia alienated voters and badly hurt Peter Dutton’s prospects at the federal election, the Coalition frontbencher Andrew Bragg has warned.
Labor has cast doubt on the possibility of the Trump administration transferring an Iranian-born man from US immigration detention to Australia, saying it has no knowledge of the case.
The US government is threatening to deport Reza Zavvar, a 52-year-old permanent resident who lives in Maryland, to either Australia or Romania – despite having no links to either country.
Zavvar is being held in detention near his home, despite previously holding a US immigration green card, due to a historical conviction for marijuana possession which dates back to the 1990s.
He arrived in the US at 12 years of age on a student visa, meaning he has lived in the US for four decades.
The controversial deal adds to corruption allegations engulfing Nauru and is expected to further embarrass the federal government, which has spent billions of taxpayer dollars on the remote island that has played a key role in Australia’s offshore processing policy.
Leader of Australian bikie gang strikes deal to provide security on Nauru. By Cameron Houston, SMH
Australia is seeking to deport three people released under the NZYQ decision to the tiny Pacific nation in exchange for an undisclosed payment but their removal has been stalled since February due to court challenges.
He was a leader in education at the hospital and also through the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). He received the RACP John Sands Medal in 2015, and the Howard Williams Medal in 2023. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Paediatrics & Child Health from 2009-2021. Prof. Isaacs was a leader in paediatric clinical ethics and established and led the Children’s Hospital at Westmead Clinical Ethics Service until his retirement in 2021. He was profoundly respected for his clinical work and advocacy in refugee and asylum seeker child health.
He established and led the Health Assessment for Refugee Kids (HARK) clinic in Sydney and was a leading voice in witnessing to the trauma imposed on children through immigration detention. After consulting on children being held in immigration detention in Nauru, he was prominent in the Kids off Nauru campaign.
In Memoriam: Professor David Isaacs. From World Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases (WSPID)
Nearly two million Afghan refugees and migrants have been forced to leave Iran in the last three months, as Tehran stated it can no longer support them.
VIDEO: Refugees forced back to Afghanistan by Iran. By Meghna Bali, ABC News
Lana, now 34, had fled family violence in Iran, risking her life to travel to Australia by boat from Indonesia in 2013. After her vessel was intercepted by Australian authorities, she was detained on Christmas Island then moved to an open detention centre on Nauru, where she stayed for almost four years. In 2017, married to Scott and four months pregnant, she was flown to Brisbane’s immigration detention centre for medical reasons, where she spent the remainder of her pregnancy.
The pair have a seven-year-old son and live in regional Queensland. Lana took her husband’s surname and now works, when her limited immigration status allows, in disability support.
But with no possibility of acquiring permanent residency while in Australia, Lana is about to take what may seem an unthinkable step – returning to Iran to wait up to two years while an offshore application is processed.
At least nine asylum seekers on Nauru have contracted dengue fever amid an outbreak on the island, including one man who was medically evacuated to Australia for treatment and then returned this week, according to a legal aid group and an asylum seeker there…
..There are approximately 93 asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru, who mostly live in the community on a stipend of $230 a fortnight from the Australian government. They have been there between two and 22 months, and will never be settled in Australia under government policies. Those with refugee status currently have no resettlement options.
“Many of the men have pre-existing health conditions, which mean that the illness that they have with dengue is just compounding,” Abdel-Raouf said.
If you've spent any time on social media in recent years, you would have seen people criticising Australia's high levels of immigration, for various reasons.
But in recent months, we've seen some of the most severe criticisms of high immigration coming from people who work for the exact organisations that have been among the biggest supporters of high immigration for the past few decades.
Have the political winds suddenly shifted? It raises many interesting questions.
Has high immigration fallen out of favour in Australia? By Gareth Hutchens, ABC News
The newly elected MP Basem Abdo has told parliament in his first speech the government should make a “historic commitment” to international law, human rights and peace, saying Palestinians are always “made to be strangers in their own homes”.
Abdo, who is of Palestinian background, has spoken of his family’s journey from Kuwait to Jordan during the first Gulf war before settling in Australia, telling parliament of the “intergenerational dispossession” of Palestinians.
Coming soon after the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had told parliament of his distress at seeing images from Gaza, Abdo’s speech did not explicitly mention Israel’s military campaign in the occupied territory, but it carried unmistakeable references to the growing humanitarian crisis.
“International law matters. The international rules-based order matters,” Abdo said on Monday night.
“Human rights matter. The right to peace, justice and recognition matters. Deserving of an historic commitment.”
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