Australia has fewer than 1,000 foreigners in immigration detention, while the number of fake refugee illegal immigrants refusing to leave the country has exceeded 100,000 for the first time.
According to the latest Department of Home Affairs data, on July 31 there were 965 people in immigration detention facilities, 89.4% of whom had a criminal history. 4.9% were being held in “alternative places of detention”, including hotels and apartment-style accommodation.
More than half, 561, were in detention due to visa cancellations for criminal matters, 191 were visa overstayers, 123 were illegal immigrants who arrived by sea, 28 failed to clear immigration after arriving by air, and the remaining 62 had their visas cancelled for other reasons.
At the same time the number of fake refugees – asylum seekers who have had their applications rejected – hit 100,157 in August, with another 26,017 awaiting decision, according to the same department.
It is unclear how many, if any, of that cohort are in immigration detention, with many lodging appeals, getting bridging visas, or becoming illegal workers.
Just 14% of asylum seeker applications processed by Home Affairs last financial year were deemed legitimate, and former immigration department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi told The Age there had been an “extraordinary growth in undocumented workers” over the past decade.
“It started in about 2015, when there was a labour trafficking scam that took off out of Malaysia and China. That has died down. But after that, a lot of people opportunistically saw the backlog was so big and lodged an asylum application to extend their stay in Australia. Many would have been advised to do so by scam agents,” he said.
“We had a massively growing backlog which wasn’t being processed. Now, we have a massive backlog that is being processed, but the people coming out the other end aren’t departing. Unless the government invests a lot more money in dealing with the issue, I can’t see the trend changing.”
Last week the Australian Border Force revealed it had deported or was in the process of deporting seven “scam migration agents” for defrauding hundreds of visa applicants in a scam that netted them $1.4 million.
The group, who were operating illegally in Queensland and Victoria and had links to organised crime, charged 470 tourists exorbitant fees to help them file fraudulent Protection Visa applications.
Header image: Left, a Nigerian charged with running an alleged drug ring from inside Sydney’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre last year (NSW Police). Right, a scam migration agent arrested by Border Force (ABF).
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