Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Statelessness
FACTSHEET Refugees and asylum seekers, including stateless persons Background information offshore: 180 in Nauru and 181 in Papua New Since late 2013, Australia has persistently Guinea. undermined the institution of asylum by As at August 2020, almost 5,000 people who intercepting people seeking asylum at sea and arrived in Australia by boat in 2012-13 and implementing rapid returns, with rudimentary sought asylum were still waiting for the screening and without access to legal advice outcome of their applications. A further or fair process. Australia has also returned 8,400 people were refused protection in a people at airports without properly assessing refugee status determination procedure that their claims. lacks important procedural safeguards and is Non-citizens who do not hold a visa are inconsistent with international standards. subject to mandatory, indefinite and non- reviewable detention. As of 30 June 2020, Arbitrary detention in prison-like 1,523 people were detained in immigration conditions detention facilities in Australia. The average The legal framework for immigration detention length of time spent in detention has does not require consideration of necessity, increased by 40% since March 2015 (when reasonableness and proportionality, and is the previous round of NGO reporting was therefore liable to produce cases of arbitrary published) and grew from 394 days to 551 detention. days in June 2020. Some people are spending In recent years, the conditions of immigration in excess of ten years in immigration detention facilities have become more prison- detention. like. The use of restrictive measures such as Children previously transferred to Nauru have controlled movement policies, a lower been either temporarily transferred to Australia threshold for using single separation units, or settled permanently in a third country.
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