The least they could do is wait until school is released. Notify the school authorities to have the children wait after school then take them to the detention center.


TKS

so much for the universal declaration of human rights.
i bet it's hung on the walls of john howards office.
a nice decoration

Deportations happened here on Monday. One of the 30 or so people deported was a student who was to sit his final school exams in June but was told to go home and pack his things because he was being deported that night even tho he was in the country for 5 years.

I'm not familiar with the Australia's constitutional structure.

Questions: Is it generally excepted that immigrants have some measure of due process protection regarding the removal process? Also can relief be granted based on any statutory hardship grounds? Is there any judicial review of removal orders? Seems like the Aussies have a particularly expeditious removal process.

geez. our governments immigration laws just makes ones' bosoms swell with pride. yet this asshole was voted back into office with such an overwhelming majority that he now controls both houses
Come July i going to be shitting myself.

The short answer is that this has been a contentious issue since the MV Tampa incident, where boats full of people sailing from Indonesia attempting to claim refugee status in Australia sank, and the people were picked up by a Scandinavian vessel which was then not allowed to land.

This all occurred around (i) the time of 9/11, and (ii) the last-but-one Australian federal election, which made border protection and "illegal immigration" a hot political issue.

There's some info on the background/legal stuff here, and the government's Border Protection Act is linked to from this page.

No more school! No more school! If you're not a legal citizen, why not burn the building on your way out?

For the sake of balance, I think that it's important to also include some more of the article for those people that aren't going to read the link.

To begin, it's fairly easy for someone to cry foul to the media when things don't go their way. The individual can make a claim, and due to Australian privacy legislation, without the written consent of the persons in question, the department cannot release specific, personal information.

For the sake of argument, someone's visa problems might include overstaying a visa, presenting a false passport, a fake marriage of convenience. The person might also be HIV+, a convicted paedophile, rapist, murderer or terrorist. The privacy act prevents this information (and often the reality of the situation, regardless of the spin put on it from either side) from getting out.

If you were refused a visa because you were a convicted child-murderer, would you want everyone to know about it?

Children and immigration issues are a minefield. And the department is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Pull the kids out of school to place them in appropriate care - branded as heavy-handed thugs

Leave mum and dad in detention where 6 & 8 yr old kids go home to no care or welfare arrangements - the department is shirking it's responsibility. Take this case to the opposite end - mum and dad are in detention and the kids burns the house down kiling him and his sister - the department would be crucified.

removal is required under law IF you are an unlawful-non citizen - ie don't have a visa. detention is a last resort. most individuals facing removal are granted visas to allow them to remain in the community until they make arrangements to depart - in some cases with work rights so they can buy their own ticket home. people are detained when they are unwilling or unable to depart.

much is made of refugee-claimants being held in immigration detention for periods of upto 4-5 years - this is a result of the due process that is available. (this makes it sounds like I think that being held in detention is a good thing) you make an application - it is decided by the department. you don't like the outcome, you can seek review from the migration review tribunal or refugee review tribunal. if you don't like that outcome, you can apply for review to the various layers of the court system.

people without a visa are to be removed from australia as soon as practicable. if someone is medically unfit to travel, then they won't travel. but once you get to the stage where you don't have a visa, and have exhausted all attempts to obtain a visa (and there are options available even if you have been living in australia unlawfully for many years) then you have to go home....

it's also worth noting that you can only send someone home if they have a valid travel document - and some countries around the world are less than helpful in providing such documents to some of their citizens....

[Edited on Mar 17, 2005 8:31PM]

No problem, but for the sake of balance, I quoted the minister herself.

The questions this raises are to do with whether this kind of practice is new -- if not, we haven't heard about it before, and if so, is it a direct consequence of the Border Protection act. And if so, was it an unintended consequence?

Moreover, it's hard to know about specific cases as you suggest, but it does seem like we're talking about some visa overstayers, not people who've been denied visas in the first place. Proportionate response?

indeed.

I'll happily admit that my examples were in relation to people who might have been refused the grant of a visa.

If you apply for a visa, you are granted a bridging visa - this will kick in if your current visa expires before your application can be assessed. Should your current visa expire and you are refused the visa, the bridging visa will remain valid for 28 days after notification of the decision - any applications for review will essentially return the status of your application to undecided.

If you do not depart Australia within 28 days, nor lodge another application for review, then you will be unlawful - and essentially you will have overstayed your visa. The response to a failed applicant versus an overstayer is identical: give them the opportunity to depart voluntarily unless they are unwilling or unable to depart. Should someone have overstayed a visa by 2-3 years, that would tend to indicate that they are unwilling to depart..

Once again the privacy act prevents information about the nature of the kid's parents cases from being released. the fact that they were in detention would indicate that it is more likely than not that they were long-term overstayers.


the requirement to detain unlawful non-citizens is not a new practice. By the Border Protection Act, I assume you mean the Border Protection (Validation and Enforcement Powers) Act 2001. this piece of legislation:

from http://www.immi.gov.au/facts/71border_1.htm

I don't see the relevance of this act to the detention of unlawful non-citizens present in Australia (as opposed to those seeking to enter Australia)

I think that it's more likely that it's a practice that has occurred in the past, but due to the recent Cornelia Rau situation bringing awareness of detention issues to the forefront again the schools in question felt that the media was an appropriate venue to raise what they thought were legitimate concerns.

I'll happily admit that for immigration officers to enter school property unannounced and walk upto a classroom and drag a kid away is abhorrent, however the information being presented by Vandstone and departmental officers is that the department co-operated with the schools, and acted not only with the blessing of the parents, but with the instructions from the parents to remove the kids from classroom.

[Edited on Mar 18, 2005 by discombobulate]

Amanda Vanstone, by all rights, should be drowned at sea. Or better yet, thrown off poorly-constructed fishing boat.