Bridging visas ‘preferred’ model for boat people

Preferred model ... Catherine Branson has urged the use of bridging visas for asylum seekers following her trip to the Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia.

Preferred model … Catherine Branson has urged for the use of bridging visas for asylum seekers following her trip to the Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia. Photo: Fairfax

THE Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Catherine Branson, had urged the federal government to look at the use of bridging visas for asylum seekers after visiting the remote Curtin detention centre in the West Australian desert.

With the centre over capacity and housing 1433 men, a third of whom had been in detention for more than a year, the commissioner was troubled by rising incidents of self-harm and the limbo state of asylum seekers who were genuine refugees but had received adverse security assessments, or had been rejected as refugees but were unable to be sent home because of safety concerns.

Ms Branson last night welcomed the federal government’s announcement it will introduce the limited use of bridging visas, which allow asylum seekers to work and live in the community, for boat arrivals for the first time.

”Across the board we would like people to be processed while living in the community. Bridging visas are the preferable method and this is in line with calls we have been making for quite a long time,” she said.

Ms Branson said the government’s planned use of bridging visas to stop overcrowding in detention centres will show there is nothing to fear from having boat arrivals living in the community.

The Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, would not go into details on who would qualify for bridging visas, but they could be used to free up beds in detention centres by overcoming bureaucratic delays in the processing of applications.

The Immigration Department is also known to be concerned at how to handle the large number of Iranian asylum seekers, who are now the largest group of boat arrivals, who have received negative refugee assessments. Iranians cannot be sent back to Iran because there is no agreement with that government, and no country is returning Iranians involuntarily because of the safety risk.

Failed asylum seekers could potentially be released into the community to work while they await a change in circumstances in their home country.

The Human Rights Commission argues that community processing is used by most other countries, is cheaper and poses a much lower mental health risk. It has costed community processing at $38 a day, compared with $125 for detention.

Richard Towle, regional representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said it appeared onshore processing of claims would continue in line with the High Court’s decision, and encouraged the federal government to accept a UNHCR offer to conduct a ”top-to-bottom” review of its asylum system ”with the aim of promoting greater effectiveness, efficiency and fairness”, as had been done in several European countries.

The UNHCR has asked the federal government to clarify how community detention and bridging visas will be used. The refugee agency had been expecting that Australia would honour its commitment to accept 4000 refugees from Malaysia as an addition to its annual humanitarian intake. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said yesterday that this would not be the case, and the annual humanitarian quota of 14,750 would not increase.

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes