MYTHS, FACTS AND SOLutions 1 ASYLUM SEEKER RESOURCE CENTRE WWW.ASRC.ORG.AU Asylum seekers and refugees myths FACTS + solutions 2 Myths, FACTS AND SOLUTIONS Asylum Seeker Resource Centre 12 Batman Street West Melbourne, Vic. 3003 Telephone +61 3 9326 6066 www.asrc.org.au Design zirka&wolf. www.zirkawolf.com MYTHS, FACTS AND SOLutions 3 MYTHS AND FACTS MYTH 1 Asylum seekers are ‘illegal immigrants’ .........................................................4 MYTH 2 People who arrive by boat are not ‘genuine refugees’. .5 MYTH 3 Asylum seekers have only themselves to blame for lengthy detention because they lodge endless appeals ....................................................................7 MYTH 4 When asylum seekers destroy their documentation they are cheating the system ..................8 MYTH 5 Boat arrivals might be terrorists or pose other security risks. .9 MYTH 6 Boat people are queue jumpers; they take the place of refugees patiently waiting in overseas camps .....................................................................11 MYTH 7 Asylum seekers don’t use the proper channels — they come via ‘the back door’ ...................13 MYTH 8 Asylum seekers are ‘country shoppers’; they could have stopped at safe places along the way. 15 MYTH 9 Asylum seekers are ‘cashed up’ and ‘choose’ to come here. .16 MYTH 10 People smugglers are ‘evil’ and the ‘vilest form of human life’. .17 MYTH 11 Australia is losing control over its borders ......................................................19 MYTH 12 If we are too ‘soft’ there will be a flood of asylum seekers .......................................21 MYTH 13 Offshore processing is the solution to boat arrivals .............................................23 MYTH 14 Onshore asylum seekers only need temporary protection visas ..................................24 MYTH 15 Charity begins at home; we can’t priviledge asylum seekers over ‘our own’ disadvantaged .........26 MYTH 16 Refugees will strain our economy and threaten ‘our way of life’ ..................................28 SOLUTIONS SOLUTION 1 End mandatory detention ....................................................................30 SOLUTION 2 Adopt community processing as the norm .....................................................31 SOLUTION 3 Equitably share the internationl refugee burden ................................................33 SOLUTION 4 Invest in a serious regional protection framework. 34 SOLUTION 5 Provide alternative legal pathways to seek asylum. .35 SOLUTION 6 Take serious action to prevent deaths at sea ...................................................36 SOLUTION 7 Recognise there is no final ‘solution’ ...........................................................38 FURTHER READING REFERENCES 4 Myths, FACTS AND SOLUTIONS MYTH 1 ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE 'ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS' Asylum seekers are not immigrants. Immigrants leave The Government’s policy of detaining unauthorised by choice and are able to return home at any time. asylum seekers is not evidence of criminality: detention Asylum seekers leave because they are forced to for is justified on administrative and not punitive grounds.6 fear of persecution and cannot return due to that In other words, asylum seekers who arrive without a fear. Historically, the majority of asylum seekers arrive visa are detained for identity, security and health checks in Australia by plane holding a valid tourist, work or and to prevent absconding while their legal status is study visa.1 resolved, rather than as a punishment for breaking the law. However, the conditions endured by asylum Yet, even those asylum seekers who enter Australia seekers during long-term detention have been proven without a valid visa by sea or plane are not illegal. to cause a great deal of physical and mental anguish They are permitted to enter without prior authorisation which is tantamount to punishment. This is unjustifiable, because this right is protected by Article 31 of the 1951 especially since it is unnecessary and counterproductive Refugee Convention which recognises they have good and there are viable cheaper arrangements available 2 cause for entering without a visa. Like a speeding (see Solution 2). ambulance, asylum seekers are exempt from the usual application of the law because they are in an There is nothing wrong in doing whatever you can emergency situation. Furthermore, no offence under to secure freedom and there is nothing illegal about Australian law criminalises the act of arriving in Australia seeking asylum. without a valid visa for the purposes of seeking asylum.3 This is true even if asylum seekers travel through a transit country before reaching Australia as UNHCR’s Geneva Expert Roundtable long ago clarified.4 The phrase ‘illegal immigrant’ is therefore highly misleading. Given this, the Australian Press Council, responsible for promoting good standards of media practice, released a set of advisory guidelines for media reporting on asylum seekers which state that, “great care must be taken to avoid describing people who arrived by boat without a visa in terms that are likely to be inaccurate or unfair... if the terms can reasonably be interpreted as implying criminality or other serious misbehaviour... terms such as ‘illegal immigrants’ or ‘illegals’ may constitute a breach of the Council’s Standards of Practice... The risk of breach can usually be avoided by using a term such as ‘asylum seekers’.”5 MYTHS, FACTS AND SOLutions 5 MYTH 2 ‘BoAt people’ are noT 'GENUINE REFUGEES' There is no such thing as a ‘genuine’ or ‘non-genuine’ The refugee status determination process includes refugee. Either you are a refugee with the legal right of not just a primary assessment with DIAC but also protection or you are not a refugee at all. In any case, a secondary review process with a relatively more the allegation that boat arrivals are not genuine in their independent tribunal, followed by the possibility for appeals for protection from persecution is untrue. In any appeal to the Federal Court and also the Minister of one year since the late 1990s, between 70 and 97 per Immigration. As mentioned above, history indicates that cent of asylum seekers arriving by boat have been found at the end of the refugee status determination process, to be refugees and granted protection. The average in including appeals, the vast majority of boat arrivals are recent years is closer to 90 per cent.7 found to be in need of protection. The most recent immigration data shows that 88 per The most recent statistics from DIAC reinforce this cent of asylum seekers who arrived by boat in the fact. In financial year 2010–2011, 74 per cent of failed 2009–2010 financial year, including those initially rejected protection visa applicants at the primary stage were at the primary stage, are now deemed refugees (see overturned upon independent review. In the last quarter Figure 1). 68 per cent of those arriving in 2010–2011 have of 2011, the overturn rate increased to 79.3 per cent, also been found to be genuinely fleeing persecution. including a 74.2 per cent overturn rate for Iranians (see Half of this later group is still awaiting a review of their Figure 3). These figures do not include further appeals decision and, given the high overturn rate, the final to the Federal Court or the Minister of Immigration percentage is likely to be much higher (see Figure 2). which could result in even higher final overturn rates. High rejection rates at the primary level are not unusual. From time to time, the media quotes high rejection For example, in 2001–2002, the Department’s error rate rates of boat arrivals at the primary stage to give the was 62% when assessing Afghan claims and 87% for impression that asylum seekers are not ‘genuine’. In 2011, Iraqi claims.10 there was much media attention around the fact that 50% of Afghan asylum seekers had been rejected by Given the lack of integrity in the refugee status the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC).8 determination process (see Myth 3), the biggest concern In 2012, the focus has shifted to Iranians who have now is not that some asylum seekers might slip through the overtaken Afghans as the largest cohort of maritime system illegitimately but the risk that those who are arrivals.9 There are many reasons why higher than usual genuine in their claims could be denied protection. In rejection rates appear from time to time at the primary the past Australia has deported asylum seekers back stage, largely resulting from the fact that DIAC is not an to dangerous situations where they have subsequently independent body (see myth 3). In any case, the focus on been killed – including children.11 the primary rejection rate is misleading. 6 Myths, FACTS AND SOLUTIONS Figure 1: Status of boat arrivals who arrived in 2009-10 % of post primary Final caseload Number Primary Primary Primary Final Refusals Overhand granted (POst REVIEW Citizenship of IMSa Grants refusals Grant Rate Grants OUtcOME) (review) visas Afghanistan 2968 1600 1354 54.2% 2598 220 71 89.9% Sri Lanka 835 469 270 62.0% 517 91 22 82.1% Stateless 601 341 256 57.1% 530 52 10 89.5% Iraq 345 176 168 51.2% 287 53 2 83.9% Iran 329 132 182 42.0% 254 33 15 84.1% Other 149 83 58 58.9% 105 24 8 77.8% Total 5227 2801 2296 55% 4291 473 128 87.8% Figure 2: Status of boat arrivals who arrived in 2010-11 % of post primary Final caseload Number Primary Primary Primary Final Refusals Overhand granted (POst REVIEW Citizenship of IMSa Grants refusals Grant Rate Grants OUtcOME) (review) visas Afghanistan