Ever
since
Scott Morrison - as then
Australian Minister for Immigration and Border Protection - imposed
a complete media blackout on asylum seekers arriving by sea, voters have never
been quite sure how to take the Liberal-Nationals boast that they had “stopped
the boats".
Every
so often an
inconvenient highly visible landing on our shores revealed that the
boats had never stopped coming.
Now
faced with increasing pressure to close Manus and Nauru as offshore detention
sites, Prime Minister Morrison and his political cronies have to once again hype
up the threat of ravening hoardes of undocumented immigrants by drawing out attention back to those boats.
The Australian, 24 October 2018, p.6:
....Operation Sovereign Borders has
prevented more than 3300 asylum-seekers coming to Australia by turning back 33
boats and successfully disrupting nearly 80 people-smuggling ventures in the
past five years.
The Australian can
reveal that since September 2013, at least 2525 people have been stopped from
boarding boats to Australia because of co-operation with neighbouring countries
which has led to the disruption of 78 people-smuggling operations.
In addition, 33 boats
trying to ferry just over 800 asylum-seekers to Australia were stopped on the
high seas or turned back.
Home Affairs Minister
Peter Dutton yesterday told parliament that advice from the Operation Sovereign Borders agency
heads was that the “threat of people-smuggling has certainly not gone away”....
According to the
Refugee
Council of Australia on 3 August 2018 there were:
3,127 people
have been sent to Nauru or PNG as part of offshore processing arrangements
An
estimated 1,534 people are still on Nauru or PNG as of 29 July 2018,
and as of 30 June 2018 219 are still in Nauru Regional Processing
Centre
947 people
have left ‘voluntarily’, including through resettlement, as of 29 July 2018,
and since September 2012 to May 2018 646 people have left Manus
and 165 from Nauru ‘voluntarily’ to their country of origin,
and 20 people were forcibly removed from Manus
494 people
have been transferred to Australia for medical treatment, and 460 of
them were still in Australia as of 21 May 2018 (based on official information
that 294 people had left for the US as of 30 April 2018 and reports of another
121 people resettling in the US since then)
7 people
had left for Cambodia, as of 30 April 2018
372 people
have been accepted by the US (including those who have left), and 121 have
been refused by the US, as of 21 May 2018
By
far the largest number of those refused are from Iran (70), although 15
Iranians have been accepted
There
are 170 families on Nauru, including 99 families which have 158
minors, as of 26 February 2018
There
are at least 100 children who have been born to people subject to
offshore processing, as of 23 October 2017
There
are nine nuclear family units split between Australia and offshore
processing, as of 23 October 2017
There
are 583 recognised refugees left in PNG, and 821 recognised
refugees on Nauru, as of 21 May 2018.
Australia
also holds people in onshore immigration detention and as of 31 July 2018:
Numbers
of people in held detention: 1,345 with key sites being Villawood
(502), Christmas Island (173), and Yongah Hill (262)
Average
length of detention: 446 days, with 267 people having spent
more than 730 days in detention
Numbers
of people held in detention because they came seeking asylum by boat: 315
Number
of children: in detention facilities including ‘Alternative Places of
Detention’: 5, in Nauru Regional Processing Centre: 12, in community
detention: 176, and in the community on a bridging visa E: 2,835
Number
of people in community detention: 386, from Iran (221), stateless
(46) or from Sri Lanka (36), with 245 people having spent more than
730 days in community detention
Key
nationalities of people in detention: New Zealand (174), Vietnam (104), Sri
Lanka (89), and Iran (103).
To date there are reportedly 200 asylum seeker children and their parents in legal limbo in Australia with no clear path to either Australian citizenship or the full protection under international law, because although government sources are allegedly saying to the media that these children will never be returned to Manus or Nauru there are no guarantees in place.
As of 29 October 2018 50 children remain on Nauru.
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