East Timorese Asylum Seekers Rejected

29 April 2005

Yesterday approximately 20 East Timorese asylum seekers had their applications for humanitarian visas rejected by the Minister for Immigration, Senator Amanda Vanstone.

"These are people who have been living in Australia for nine to twelve years. In some families all the children threatened with deportation were born in Australia. To all intents and purposes these are Australian kids. How can we send them back to live in a country they have no knowledge of, where their parents were persecuted?" said A Just Australia's National Coordinator, Kate Gauthier.

These rejected cases had the same claims as people that have been accepted in the past. What is different here is the length of time it has taken to finally process their permanent claims.

The refugee and humanitarian system has failed these people by taking ten years to process their requests for permanent protection. That's ten years living on the edge of Australia - being here physically but being denied the right to plan for the safe future of those Australian born kids. And despite being denied access to the settlement support services that all other refugees get, many of them have created very close ties to the wider Australian community.

In addition, the rejection letters were hand delivered by compliance officers both to the lawyers and the applicants themselves.

What is disturbing is that these rejections were hand delivered by compliance officers to people's homes and workplaces, creating additional humiliation and distress. Additionally, the East Timorese government have been informed by the department that these are voluntary returns, when they are not.

It is not clear why these cases are now being treated in this manner. This is another example of how the refugee and humanitarian system is not open and transparent, which it needs to be in order to have accountability to the Australian public.

A Just Australia calls on the Immigration Minister to recognise the length of time these people have been living in Australia while waiting for their permanent visas and to view with compassion their humanitarian claims to remain in Australia. "Ten years is too long to keep people on the shelf before dusting them off and shipping them back home. "