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Up to 80,000 people of various visa categories could be potentially removed to third countries by the Albanese government’s migration bill that legal experts, advocates, and former refugees have lambasted.
DailyMail.com reports that the government has yet to state which countries it has been in discussions with in a bill that passed the House of Representatives and was examined in a Senate inquiry on Thursday.
The proposed amendments to the Migration Act seek to deport non-citizens, including not just those convicted of crimes, and to pay those third countries for their part in the removal regime. It would also grant extensive immunity to government officials and those in third countries involved with the removals and reversing protection findings for refugees.
The amendments came after a ruling found that indefinite immigration detention was unlawful. The landmark ruling triggered the release of 200 non-citizens with varying criminal offences. Released immigration detainees, known as the NZYQ cohort, were strapped with ankle monitors and slapped with curfews.
In early November, the High Court struck down a case brought by a stateless Eritrean refugee known as YBFZ, ruling it punitive and an overreach by the government. This prompted the government to rush this bill.
Department of Home Affairs officials revealed that 10 people had had their ankle monitors and curfews reimposed.
First assistant secretary of immigration compliance Michael Thomas said that 4452 people on Bridging Visa E, 986 in immigration detention, 193 in community detention, 246 on Bridging Visa R from the N2YQ cohort, 96 individuals also on the same visa, and potentially “a fluid cohort” of up to 75,400 people could be included.
after being questioned by Greens senator David Shoebridge about who would be affected by the legislation, Home Affairs secretary Stephanie Foster answered, “We certainly explained what the definition of a removal pathway non-citizen was. It’s my understanding that ministers have an understanding of the broader cohort.”
Earlier in the hearing, former Manus Island detainee and award-winning Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani said, “Based on this bill, you are going to send them to another country to start again and we know those countries that you are going to send people actually, they can detain them, they can deport them and they can torture them.
“What Australia has done is to banish refugees to be out of sight and out of mind.”
He then pleaded with the senators to vote down the bill: “I know that most of the senators in Australia, probably many of them, have never ever met a refugee … in their lives. You haven’t met them, but they are people. Try to imagine who they are. They are just human beings.”
