Australian immigration detention facilities

Australian immigration detention facilities comprise a number of different facilities throughout Australia (including one on the Australian territory of Christmas Island).^[1] They are currently used to imprison people who are detained under Australia’s policy of mandatory immigration detention, and previously under the now defunct Pacific Solution.^[2] The facilities are currently operated by Serco, and were previously run under G4S who used to be named Global Solutions Limited (GSL), under contract from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).^[3][4]

Background

The Migration Act 1958 allowed discretionary detention of unauthorised arrivals until 1992. Since the 1990s when the Keating Government created a policy of mandatory detention of unauthorised arrivals, with non-citizens arriving by boat without a valid visa being detained until they were either granted a visa, or deported.^[5]

Towards the end of the 1990s, a large increase in the number of unauthorised arrivals exceeded the capacity of the existing Immigration Reception and Processing Centres at Port Hedland and Curtin.^[6]

Facilities and citizenship

^[7]

Immigration Detention Centres (IDCs)

Northern IDC, Darwin, 2010

Asylum seekers on the roof of Villawood IDC, Sydney

Immigration detention centres detain people who have overstayed their visa, breached their visa conditions and had their visa cancelled or have been refused entry at Australia's entry ports.^[8] This includes irregular maritime arrivals claiming asylum without passports, identity papers or valid entry visas. Under the Migration Act 1958, people arriving in this manner are classed as unlawful non-citizens and are currently subject to mandatory detention. However, in 1954 the Australian government ratified the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Under Article 31 of the convention, the Australian government is legally obligated to grant anyone fleeing persecution and seeking asylum the right to enter the country by whatever means possible. Furthermore, the Article states that signatory countries are not to impose penalties on or indefinitely restrict the freedom of movement of those seeking asylum.^[9]

Australia's Migration Act 1958 requires people who are not Australian citizens and who are unlawfully in Australia to be detained. Unless they are given legal permission to remain in Australia by being granted a visa, unlawful non-citizens must be removed from Australia as soon as reasonably practicable. The Australian government claims that immigration detention is not used to punish people. Instead, they claim it is an administrative function whereby people who do not have a valid visa are detained while their claims to stay are considered or their removal is facilitated.^[10]

There are, or were, centres located at:

• Maribyrnong, established at Melbourne in 1966.
• Villawood, established at Sydney in 1976.
• Perth, established in 1981.
• Christmas Island, established 2001.
• Northern, established at Darwin in 2001.
• Baxter, near Port Augusta, SA, established 2002, closed 2007.
• Wickham Point, established at Darwin in 2011.
• Curtin, near Derby, WA, reopened in 2010.
• Scherger, near Weipa, Queensland, opened 2010, closed 2014.^[11]
• Yongah Hill, near Northam, WA, established in 2012.

Immigration Residential Housing Centres

Immigration residential housing provides an option for accommodating people in independent family-style housing in a community setting while still formally being detained. This type of facility is one of several types of alternative residential accommodation for detained people, subject to them meeting eligibility criteria.^[12]

• Perth
• Sydney
• Port Augusta

Immigration Transit Accommodation Centres

The Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation opened in November 2007 and the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation opened in June 2008. Further immigration transit accommodation opened in Adelaide in 2011. ITCs are for short-term, low-risk detainees.^[7]

• Brisbane
• Melbourne
• Adelaide

Alternative Places of Detention (APOD)

Alternative Places of Detention (APOD) can accommodate any person who is in immigration detention. APOD may range from hospital accommodation in cases of necessary medical treatment, schools for the purpose of facilitating education to school-aged minors, rented accommodation in the community (hotel rooms, apartments), or accommodation in the community made available through arrangements with other government departments.

• Darwin
• Inverbrackie
• Leonora
• Christmas Island

Pacific Solution facilities

Manus Island regional processing facility (Image by DIAC)

Since the implementation of the Pacific Solution Australia also funded immigration detention centres on:

• Manus Island Regional Processing Centre, Papua New Guinea closed during in February 2008, reopened on 22 November 2012.^[13]
• Nauru closed during in February 2008, reopened in 2012.^[14]

Controversy

The facilities have been a source of much controversy during their time of operation. There have been a number of riots and escapes,^[15] as well as accusations of human rights abuses from organisations such as refugee advocates, Amnesty International, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations.

On January 2014, the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens accused the government of a cover-up over a violent clash on 18 October 2013 at the Manus Island facility between the Papua New Guinea army and the Papua New Guinea police mobile squad hired for the facility's security, leading to Australian expatriate staff being evacuated, while local staff and asylum seekers remained.^[16] On 5 May 2014, it was reported that several Salvation Army staffers had alleged that refugees were regularly subjected to beatings, racist slurs, and sexual assaults within the facility.^[17]

In March 2002, Irene Khan, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, said:

It is obvious that the prolonged periods of detention, characterised by frustration and insecurity, are doing further damage to individuals who have fled grave human rights abuses. The detention policy has failed as a deterrent and succeeded only as punishment.
How much longer will children and their families be punished for seeking safety from persecution?^[18]

Former Prime Minister John Howard and successive immigration ministers maintained that their actions were justified in the interests of protecting Australia's borders and ensuring that immigration law was enforced.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Australian immigration detention facilities.

• Department of Immigration and Citizenship – Detention Services
• "Waking Up The Nation", Online Documentary on Australian immigration detention centres
• "Detention Logs", Data, documents and investigations into Australia's immigration detention facilities.