In the media
Detention
An Iranian man, detained for over ten years, took his case to the High Court after the former Home Affairs Minister suddenly changed his status to get around a Federal Court order that he should be moved into the community. The complexity of his case was detailed in a CNN report.
Offshore detention regime
The AAT ruled that asylum seekers who suffered loss or damage from the 2014 Home Affairs data breach are eligible for compensation. Men who remain stuck in Papua New Guinea due to Australia’s offshore detention policy were issued eviction notices because their accommodation bills had not been paid for over a year.
Protest
Refugees, who were processed under the ‘fast track’ scheme and remain in legal limbo, protested outside Minister O’Neil’s electorate office.
International
Azerbaijan’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh caused 60km queues at the border, as ethnic Armenians fled their homeland. The UNHCR stated that more than $1 billion in aid is needed to assist Sudanese people fleeing the ongoing conflict in their country. The World Bank increased its funding to Chad to assist with the arrival of Sudanese refugees. The IOM declared the Mexico-USA border as the world’s deadliest land route for refugees and migrants. Lebanon’s interim PM complained that the significant increase in Syrians entering the country risks unsettling the demographics of Lebanon. Asylum applications in the EU increased 20% in the past year. Italy reacted to the increase by extending the permitted duration of detention for people awaiting deportation. The UK Home Secretary called for an update to the refugee convention to prevent, as she claims, a tendency for courts to interpret the risk of discrimination as being sufficient grounds for refugee protection.
In policy
The Guardian revealed that in 2020 the Auditor-General’s department warned Home Affairs that it had failed to meet the key principles of immigration detention; namely i) the speedy resolution of people’s cases and ii) prioritising community detention over locked detention. The UNSW Kaldor Centre published a policy brief on strengthening asylum systems. A man who walked from Ballarat to Sydney to bring attention to the plight of asylum seekers who are denied work rights, was granted permanent residency by way of Ministerial intervention. The Saturday Paper published a piece on the role that Australian politicians played in the UK’s current refugee policies.
In research
A study found that 46% of refugee and migrant women in Australia had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in the last 5 years. A social impact agency called Purpose published a study into the role of the media in online hate speech in Australia, in which the negative framing of refugees was one of their case studies. A review of European resettlement found that 16 EU member states had not resettled a single refugee this year. The UNSW Kaldor Centre released the program for its 2023 Conference on 20 November 2023.
New releases
The Disposables, a drama by the ABC
When Migrants Fail to Stay. New Histories on Departures and Migration. An anthology edited by Balint, Damousi and Fitzpatrick. Published by Bloomsbury.