New Migration Bill Lacks Protection for Deported Non-Citizens: Refugee Groups

Security guards patrol the grounds near rolls of razor wire at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney, Australia, on Sept. 9, 2005. Ian Waldie/Getty Images

Refugee advocacy groups have raised concerns about the lack of safeguards to protect asylum seekers who are deported to another country other than their own under new law changes.

This comes as the Labor government is pushing for the passing of the Migration Amendment Bill 2024 to fill security loopholes after a High Court’s decision in 2023 resulted in the release of over 200 detained asylum seekers into the community.

The bill makes it easier for authorities to deport unlawful non-citizens who must be removed from Australia by depriving them of protection against their countries of origin or a third country.

It also allows the government to pay third countries to accept those non-citizens.

At a recent senate inquiry hearing, Rebecca Eckard, the director of policy and research at the Refugee Council of Australia, raised the issue of the treatment of non-citizens in third countries if the bill passed both houses of the parliament.

“There are no safeguards in this legislation to ensure that people are protected in these third countries, or even protected from refoulement—being sent back to persecution and irreparable harm,” she told the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee.

The director gave a recent example of several asylum seekers from Central Africa who arrived in Papua New Guinea (PNG) from Australia.

She said the PNG government sent these people back to the country they fled from without adequately assessing their identity or protection needs.

“This legislation would create the circumstance where this could happen to even more refugees,” Eckard said.

“Since the bill relinquishes any liability or responsibility from the Australian government regarding people removed from Australia and their subsequent treatment in a third country, there is no accountability.”

Concerns About Family Separation

Meanwhile, Laura John, the associate legal director of the Human Rights Law Centre, said her organisation was concerned that the bill did not recognise the value of “family unity” nor consider the complex situations of non-citizens with families.

“Something that’s of grave concern to us is that this bill actually contemplates that children could be sent to a third country,” she said.

“It also contemplates that a child who is an Australian citizen could have their parent stepped to a third country because there’s nothing in this bill that provides any protections for children.”

Law Council of Australia Chair Carina Ford brought up the example of some children aged 17 in Manus Island and Nauru, whom she said could fall into the above situation if the new law was passed.

Government’s Response

Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster told the Committee that the bill did not expand the cohort of people who were subjected to removal nor change the Department’s duty to remove unlawful non-citizens under the Migration Act.

She also noted that the legislation did not affect Australia’s commitment to complying with its international law obligations regarding refugees.

“It does not change the protections established by the migration act for non-citizens to whom Australia owes protection,” she said.

If a person has protection against a certain country, “the duty to remove, as set out in section 198 [of the Migration Act] does not require removal to that country,” she added.

Another Home Affairs representative stated that the bill provided an additional set of levers or tools to assist authorities with the removal of people who were already required by law to be deported.