Australia currently has a problem with illegal immigrants flooding in up north. This has been in the news a lot here lately because of several things, such as the fighting in Afghanistan, and the things happening in one of the refugee processing centres here. For starters, Australia does take in refugees through legitimate channels, to be sure they actually are refugees and not just people moving house. The genuine refugees are people running away from big trouble. But others come along as well. There were/are many thousands of people fleeing the trouble in Afghanistan. These are people desperate to leave, to get out of that situation. Often they literally have nothing but the clothes on their backs. However, many people are coming to Australia through people smugglers. They pay a lot of money to avoid the refugee processing system and sneak in illegally. Such people are NOT refugees desperate to leave a terrible situation. Rather, they are people just moving to a new place because they want to. How can I say that, you may ask? If you have ten dollars in your pocket and you haven't eaten in a week and you are at the start of a street lined with fast food joints, you don't wander along until you find your favourite fast food joint; you dash into the nearest one, for needed relief. If you have the luxury of wandering about until you find your favourite mid-afternoon snack, obviously you weren't really starving. Similarly, rather than LEAVING a place, these illegal immigrants are by choice and preference COMING TO a place they prefer. They have bypassed many countries offering refuge on their way to Australia. If they were truly desperate, they would have hopped the border. Instead they had the time to sell their homes and land, get in contact with people smugglers, and arrange a months-long trip bypassing several nations of refuge to come here to Australia. Meanwhile, genuine refugees are waiting at the Afghanistan border to get out; they wait while an over-stressed and underfunded system tries to sort something out for them. These illegal immigrants, who have far more than the legal refugees, are using their wealth to completely skip ahead of their more desperate countrymen. Additionally, the legal refugee processing system includes thorough medical care. The illegal smuggling of wealthy immigrants bypasses all medical and safety protocols and leads to what happened on Christmas Island recently, where the landing of these unprocessed people gave birth to an outbreak of typhoid. Entire food-chains, entire ecosystems, and of course the citizens of Australia, are put at risk by these people who use their money and influence to jump ahead of their own countrymen. So, those are some of the people coming in, and getting in the news here. So then what happens? Well, in the last week, at one refugee processing centre, more than sixty of these illegal immigrants sewed together not only their own lips, but the lips of their small children. I absolutely DO NOT want in my country any psychopaths who would do that to their own children. But that's not all. Yesterday they drank shampoo, cleaning detergent, and any other such liquids they could gather, and forced their children to consume them too. Utter madness. Now, for some reason the politically correct lobby groups who love getting on television have decided that our government is responsible. I don't see how. The supposed refugees did this to their own children. THEY did it. By the way, if anyone feels like bringing up the supposedly incredibly long periods people must wait in those processing centres, well, a representative from Amnesty International recently said that over eighty per cent of all people who pass through those places in Australia are processed within only three months.
I am admittedly uninformed about this situation. I am going to do some reading but I have some questions. If they are at a government processing center, are the "illegal" or waiting pending a decision regarding their status? I could certainly not have a valid argument for an opposing viewpoint. I would be interested in hearing your recommendation. Do you expel the families? What about the welfare of the children after they have left? Do you expel the parents? Then you have the issue of caring for "orphaned" children. Tough decision. To split hairs, I believe that the government is responsible, but not liable. In this instance, I believe that they could not prevent the first instance, as there was presumably no indication of the pending action. I would question the shampoo drinking, however, as there seems to have been warning. Most certainly, if the same children that had their lips sewn together were not removed from their parents' "care", my opinion is that the government was neglectful and therefore responsible and liable for the subsequent shampoo incident. Peace.
The best solution for both refugee issue and illegal immigration issue is for G8 nations (not sure Australia is a party) to pressure the origin country to stop. Provide assistance for a better living conditions in the home country. These days, the government does not do anything. It is the corporations that create wealth, jobs and products. So the governments should be involved in creating a better environment.
A bit more information: Many of these refugees are from Afganistan. Australia is the only country to have a mandatory detention policy for asylum seekers while their immigration applications are processed. The refugees are stuck in isolated detention centres, although they have committed no crime other than trying to enter the country illegally.
The fact of a person's existence gives them no automatic right to enter another person's home -- your home, for instance -- uninvited, there to raid your refrigerator and demand of you a monetary allowance based on your demonstrated ability to earn income in excess of their own ability to do the same. Send them back to their homeland and let them freely suffer their own incompetence, or lack thereof, just as you have overcome your own.
Some of these people are denied fundamental human rights in their home countries. Do we not have a moral obligation to them (besides the fact that Australia and the US are signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)?
Australia as a mandatory detention process for a very good reason. Illegal immigrants trying to avoid that process spawned a typhoid outbreak on Christams Island. Most of these people come from places where health care barely exists. Contagious, chronic, and sometimes terminal diseases are rampant. They DO need to be checked out, and healed if possible, before putting Australian citizens at risk. Eighty per cent of people through these centres are done in under three months. Those who are in there for longer periods are those whose applications for residence in Australia have been turned down and are waiting for appeals to be worked out. As for separating parents and children: Yes. Those kids should absolutely be removed from such insane parents. Maybe they would have some emotional prblems later in life, but at least they wold have those lives. With those parents, their lives are currently in danger. I'm not sure how much responsibility one could lay at the government's feet. The Woomera Detention Centre has air conditioning, a swimming pool, 24-hour medical clinic, meals prepared according to the preferences of each nationality there, cable television, internet access, and supervised access to the local town. Conditions there are only ever tough when they riot and destroy the luxuries they have.
I wasn't referring to the government's responsibilty for living conditions, rather their responsibility to the children. Have they been seperated at this point? Peace.
I think the news tonight said some children have been taken to hospital and they may be removed from their families entirely. Not sure how this is progressing yet though. Some related links: http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/detention/ http://www.immi.gov.au/facts/82detention.htm http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media_releases/media01/r01118.htm http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/detention/inquiry_response.htm http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/detention/flood.htm
Most Australians would tend to agree in the main with Adam's posts. Unfortunately the majority have only small voices and are often not considered... the real decisions are made by the government and anyone loud enough to shout over them (Read : political correctness groups as mentioned). Perhaps it should be made clearer... these people, who are living in conditions a thousand times better than where they come from while being processed, are not only breaking our laws to begin with (by entering illegally) but then showing an utter disregard for our legal process by rioting, destroying the facilities provided for them, and attempting to circumvent the system by appealing numerous times in order to stay longer. They then, if not processed quickly enough (by their standards) proceed to destroy everything in sight (and sew up their kid's lips) thereby demonstrating not only a simple lack of humanity in regard to their children, but a sly, cynical view of the Australian people and our supposed "softness". They also, perhaps in the long term more importantly, also demonstrate an utter disregard and lack of respect for government facilites, and on a more personal level, taxpayers money. MY money. How can they possibly be good citizens in the future when showing this before they even become one? these are the very same people, as Adam mentioned, who are NOT at the lower end of the food chain in their native countries... the people smugglers charge huge amounts of money for their "services" and your average afghan citizen would not have nearly enough to secure passage. In addition, the people smugglers themselves do not, in the main, come from the countries they operate in... the majority are Indonesian with boat access to the Northern coast of Australia. I am not a racist. My fiancee is Chinese (Singaporean) and we have been trying for several months (more than 3) to get her pernmanent residency in order to get married. My dislike and contempt for the illegal immigrants is therefore coming from a personal level, when i think of the amount of time and money we have invested in her, and our, future, to see these "queue jumpers" take spots she might have had. Australia has a quota on immigrants... ALL immigrants... and these people are potentially destroying our chance at a future together. Perhaps Americans do not fully realise how small our economy really is.. most of these people proceed to go on government benfits almost as soon as they are accepted, and due to language and social barriers often never get off. millions of dollars wasted... I've worked for welfare for 5 years, I've seen the statistics. Throw them on a boat, give them food and fuel, and send them back. Tell them they will NOT get away with this, and next time, use their money to do things in the PROPER manner... like everyone else does. in fact, I would prefer the government to send them back to Indonesia... because this is the final "jump off" point for these illegals and the Indonesian government is so far showing a marked lack of intention to do anything about it. Once they have to deal with the boatloads, then perhaps they might see why we are .. er... annoyed. My apologies for the length of this post, and the subjective view.
Facts please! There was <b>one</b> case of typhoid. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/dec2001/refu-d27.shtml With this one correction I hope that the bulls**t that "most" Australian believe will be discredited. Me, I am all for the early release into the community of these people. A winery in the district I live in employs Afghans and there is <b>no</b> complaint from the locals as to their worthiness to be here.
While this statement might seem somewhat alarmist in nature, I think Australians have reason to be somewhat "jumpy" regarding the introduction of non-native flora and fauna, whether they be macro or microbiological. There is a long history of problems caused by alien species (rabbits, foxes, cats, goats water buffalo, pigs, donkeys, rats, house mice) that thrive in their adopted homeland because they have escaped the competitors, parasites and predators that kept them in check in their countries of origin. By your quoting of Adam's use of "most" I assume that you find it somewhat unsupported, and I too would not accept it at face value. I would also not accept your hopes to discredit peoples comments by basing your position on a seemingly small sample: "A winery in the district I live in employs Afghans and there is no complaint from the locals..." As far as the outbreak of disease, I seem to remember more cases of typhoid also, but cannot find a reference to it, so I'll have to let it stand for now. However, as some people do not read links, allow me to quote your source further: It would appear that, rather than discrediting, your article lend support to Adam's concerns. While typhoid itself poses a minimal risk to the general public (because typhoid is largely a danger to people with poor hygiene), tuberculosis, STD's and hepatitis would bother me also. On a somewhat related note: While I understand that truly objective journalism is difficult to find anymore, I read several articles from the World Socialists Web Site and do find them much more slanted than many others (just one man's opinion.) Peace. --- Edit: correct spelling error ---
More Thoughts I stipulate that mine is an outsider's view, but I've done a fair amount of reading in the past hour or so, and I'm not sure I entirely agree with you, Adam. We are amazingly comfortable in our countries, you and I. You've never had a significant civil war, a significant invasion since white settlement, or a significant religious or social persecution problem. Hell, the Communist party was legal there and members were elected to Parliament. I sit here fat and comfortable in my nice surroundings, my beloved family asleep upstairs, and I am free to think scurrilous or sacrilegious or even humorous thoughts, to read the main local paper which devotes half a page a day to lampooning prominent identities and politicians with relative impunity, or preach from the Bible or the Book of Mormon if I choose. You and I are free to wear what we choose, look how we choose, and vote how we choose. And I wonder, what must it be like to be so scared, to be unable to think your own thoughts, to be unable to voice a contrary opinion, that you'd leave everything you knew, your friends and family, knowing that you might never see them again, just for the chance of knowing those freedoms. I have no concept of the depth of terror and oppression that drive these people to seek asylum. I deeply hope that I never have to understand it at a visceral level - merely to know intellectually that it exists is an abomination. Should any person who wants to come to our countries be able to? No. Should all asylum seekers be detained? Yes, but for a fixed, short time, maybe 2 months while criminal and other checks are done, then maybe another 2 months for an appeal. Frankly, it appears that the money your country is spending on the "Pacific Solution" (has a familiar ring to it, yes?) would fund enough new public service places to process the applications in a much shorter time, plus fund teachers for English classes into the bargain (oh yes, all prospective citizens should have to attend classes if not already able to communicate in English). We are not talking about people who are tossing up whether their next holiday should be in Majorca or the Bahamas, it appears we are looking at people who, in the main, know a level of terror and pain that you and I will never comprehend. Most want no more than to make a good life for themselves and their remaining families. Isolating and imprisoning these people indefinitely does not seem to be the foundation of a relationship with your culture which optimizes the chances of their eventually fitting in as happy, settled and productive members of your society. Peace.
According to the Department of Immigration, and its Minister (both of them under the constant scrutiny of Amnesty International, the UN< and many other such groups), more than eighty per cent of people are through those centres in three months. Now, I'd like to point out that politically correct student union reps, tabloid jounralists desperate to sell a story by creating moral outrage, and website operators ARE NOT monitored by the UN, Amnesty International, and so on. See the problem?
By the way, it is a tad silly to assume Australians are ignorant or racist if they have an objection to something the politically correct crowd are up in arms about. For all you know, I could be a single mother from Afghanistan who came here through the legal immigration processes, after my family was beaten to death in Kabul for a Taliban game. To assume otherwise is what we called prejudice (pre-judging, or assuming without knowledge). I'm not, but do you see my point? An objection to the garbage spewed out by student union reps and "fight the power!" websites does not a bigot make. Nor does an objection to people breaking the law.
Oh, and I would like to point out that an independent review committee just toured the Woomera centre, and they could only say one bad thing about it: it's very isolated. They found no other problems other than those created by the illegal immigrants held there.
More information for those who are interested... I live in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, not too far from where the Woomera camp is situated. this topic has come up for discussion several times recently, and one of my co-workers has informed me that he used to work in the area for a mining company. One surprising bit of information surfaced... his quarters, while working for this company, were located in the woomera detention centre. apparently, this facility was first built as quarters for miners and their families. In other words, Australian workers were living there before it was converted to a detention centre. all they've done is modernised it a bit and put a fence around it. Given this fact, it's difficult to believe the facility is as bad as we are led to believe... we housed our own workers in it. He had no complaints with it while there. food for thought? Goofyfish... I agree in part with your comment regarding a time limitation. The idea has merit. However, where does this leave myself and my fiancee, given that our (legal) application has taken considerably longer? should illegal queue-jumpers then recieve what amounts to favourable treatment? I'm interested to know what happens in the USA with the Mexican border. Admittedly, I dont know an awful lot about it, but from what i've seen your illegal border-jumpers are simply sent back where they came from (correct me if i'm wrong) when they're caught. I wonder what sort of outcry there would be should Australia do the same thing...
This was added purely as first hand knowledge and not from any media or other source, not to discredited anyones comment. As can be seen from my link these diseases were picked up and therefore our quarantine services are doing their job. I liked your posts goofyfish, you sound sensible and humane. I am just sick of the letters I read in the local papers, some people have no idea what suffering is about. I don't possess a TV so most of my information is from ABC radio (government financed but the content is unbiased, relatvely.) Or the internet.
Again, though I am speaking as an outsider some thoughts crop up. Maybe conditions have changed since the mining company housed its employees there. This might be a result of too many detainees being housed at present. I have been reading quite a bit from the CNN and BBC websites, and it just strikes me that something must be wrong to cause these people to behave in such drastic manners. Even if the pressure is only psychological from feelings of imprisonment, perhaps the government should take steps to address it. The BBC also reports: “While most inmates have their cases processed in a matter of months, some can be incarcerated for several years.” (December 19, 2001) So, while the majority is processed in an apparently reasonable time frame, the number of immigrants being held for extended periods would increase as a percentage of the whole. I suggest that if this fact is not taken into account, it does give the appearance that these “disturbances” and protests are unwarranted. Peace.
I believe when they speak of how barren, sparse, et cetera, the place is, they are referring not to the Woomera facilities but to the area in general, which is in the outback. Fair enough, maybe the place is a friggin desert, but lots of people live out there.
