Dreamer Easy

First, hopeful news: Scott Morrison raises prospect of asylum seeker transfer to New Zealand (GA, 16 October 2018). "But the PM says Labor must accept legislation banning any resettled people from ever entering Australia."

Labor moves to make medical transfers from Nauru easier (GA, 16 October 2018). "Proposals would give more weight to medical opinion and make the minister, not department officials, responsible."

Now disastrous news: Nauru orders Médecins Sans Frontières to stop mental health work on island (GA, 6 October 2018). "The medical NGO has been providing psychological and psychiatric services to residents, asylum seekers and refugees on the island since late 2017... MSF staff were also training and supporting local authorities in an effort to increase Nauru’s capacity to provide psychological and psychiatric treatment." MSF, who were forced to abandon both Nauruan and refugee patients with severe illnesses, called for the evacuation of all asylum seekers and refugees. Nauru's government responded that MSF had been "conspiring" against it.

Good news, sort of! Australia agrees to take seriously ill refugee girl from Nauru as case reaches court (GA, 5 July 2018) | Court orders Nauru refugee and son, both ill, to be flown to Australia (GA, 13 July 2017). The judge ordered they not be separated and not be returned to Nauru. As columnist Ben Doherty reminds us: Each time Australia delays bringing a sick child from Nauru, the stakes get higher (GA, 11 July 2018). Crikey argues that Australia has weaponised suicide and Peter Dutton just admitted it (25 June 2018).

Unsurprising news from the US: Detaining Immigrant Kids Is Now a Billion-Dollar Industry (Snopes.com / AP, 12 July 2018). As Down Under, so Up Over.

Definitely good news: Brisbane mum granted 12-month extension from deportation (SBS, 27 June 2018). "A ministerial intervention has stopped the deportation of a Brisbane-based Filipino mother who was facing separation from her eight year-old son." This isn't a refugee story, but in a world full of cruelty, every small kindness is to be celebrated.

Manus Island: I found a horrific 'living graveyard' (news.com.au, 9 July 2018). An extract from Asylum Seeker Resource Centre founder Kon Karapanagiotidis's book The Power of Hope.

'They are breaking him': the stateless refugee Australia may never release (GA, 4 July 2018). A Kurdish refugee from Iran arrived in 2013 at the age of 16 and is still in detention.

Asylum seeker detainees can keep mobile phones, federal court rules (ABC, 22 July 2018)

'I didn’t know how to survive': the refugees and asylum seekers hit by Coalition cuts (GA, 12 June 2018)

Kurdish asylum seeker Fariborz Karami took his own life on Nauru last week. He was 26. A badly traumatised victim of torture, he had been appealing for mental health care for years. His wife, mother, and brother are still on Nauru. He is the third detainee on Nauru to die by suicide. Email your Labor senator to push for a Senate inquiry into offshore detention.

A terminally ill Hazara refugee on Nauru has been given the option of a fearful death there, without adequate medical care, or dying alone in Taiwan with no-one who can speak his language or perform appropriate funeral rites. More than 800 Australian doctors have signed a petition asking for him to be brought to Australia for palliative care.

Immigration detainees onshore are also subject to serious medical neglect, including being left untreated for Hepatitis C.

While Australia routinely separates refugees from their loved ones, the US is turning family separation into a conveyor belt process. A Facebook post by an immigration caseworker explains the situation asylum seekers find themselves in. This Tweet chain contains numerous practical ways to support refugee families crossing the Mexico-US border. Here's a powerful comment on the whole vicious business: The Language of the Trump Administration Is the Language of Domestic Violence (New Yorker, 11 June 2018)

Combined Refugee Action Group reports that there was a fire in the Hillside detention centre on Manus. No-one was hurt, but the men have been left without beds or food.

Asylum seekers 'face destitution' as income support and housing cut off (GA, 17 May 2018). "The federal government is taking away income support and housing from up to 100 refugees and asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru who are currently in Australia for medical treatment. The group... includes families, elderly people and pregnant women..." Vinnies characterises this cut as part of a general move by the government to divest itself of its legal responsibility to care for refugees, outsourcing that responsibility to charities and community groups. "Most of those targeted this week were families with young children, who were given six weeks to find new accommodation and a source of income."

Australia's cut to healthcare on Manus Island 'inexplicable', Amnesty says (GA, 18 May 2018). "Group criticises counselling services cut when Manus refugees have one of highest mental illness rates in world." Refugees with physical medical problems needing urgent attention have been left waiting for months or years. IMHO all this is entirely explicable: our government hopes the sick men will either die on Manus, or return to their home countries and die there, out of sight.

As others see us: There's No Escape From Australia's Refugee Gulag (Foreign Policy, 30 April 2018).

Following up on the lies about "African gangs": The truth about crime and ethnicity (The Age, 28 April 2018).

Home from an overseas trip and weeks behind on the news.

The Human Rights Commission has had its budget slashed by half a million dollars, while the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has lost $3.7 million over the next five years.

The US has so far rejected all Iranian and Somali asylum seekers on Nauru, presumably as a result of the "Muslim ban". Last month another 50 refugees were accepted by the US as part of the deal.

The Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, continues to rule out New Zealand as a resettlement option, despite NZ's willingness to accept some refugees from Manus and Nauru. However, Australia has also asked NZ to keep their offer open.

Another suicidal child has been brought to Australia from Nauru; this time the government backed down in the face of a court case, rather than having to be ordered by a judge.

You may recall the case of the woman who refused to leave Nauru for heart surgery unless her son went with her. Both are now in Taiwan, where she is recovering from surgery. A psychiatrist says her son is severely depressed and suicidal as a result of his imprisonment on Nauru and should not be returned there.

A hopeful sign: For The First Time In Forever, Voters Actually Support Limiting Offshore Detention

More soon, when I'm less jetlagged.

Great news! Tamil asylum seeker family remains in Australia after last-minute reprieve (GA, 14 March 2018)
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/14/tamil-asylum-seeker-family-remains-in-australia-after-last-minute-reprieve
Priya and family were literally taken off the plane to Sri Lanka. Their local community in Bileola deserve credit for rallying around the family.

Good news, sort of! Judge orders Nauru refugee girl's transfer to Australia over suicide risk (GA, 10 February 2018)
The judge: “The injury or damage the applicant may suffer if an injunction is refused – death or a further serious deterioration in her health – carries far more weight in the balance than the wasted expenditure the commonwealth may suffer if an injunction is granted.”

Cuts leave asylum seekers in Australia at risk of destitution, say advocates (GA, 9 March 2018)
"Some of those who have had their status resolution support service (SRSS) cut arrived in Australia as unaccompanied minors, have since graduated from high school here and won scholarships to university. With the withdrawal of financial support, some have since withdrawn from university because they can not survive while studying." These are future Australians - it's in our own interest to see that they have the best possible education.

More on the mould: Home Affairs spent $50,000 on 'dangerous' mould cleaner to combat Nauru infestation (SBS, 27 February 2018)
The steam cleaner, a "giant water blaster", was unsuitable for cleaning tents.

Compiling a long list of links to post. This government's attitude to children stands out with painful clarity. So, for now:

Judge orders Nauru refugee girl's transfer to Australia over suicide risk (GA, 10 February 2018)
The judge: “The injury or damage the applicant may suffer if an injunction is refused – death or a further serious deterioration in her health – carries far more weight in the balance than the wasted expenditure the commonwealth may suffer if an injunction is granted.” Our taxpayer dollars actually went to fighting to keep a suicidal child on Nauru.

Nauru refugee caught between her son and 'high heart attack risk' (GA, 19 February 2018)
"Medical report says she needs to be moved urgently for treatment but border force won’t allow her son to go with her." Doctors have been calling for her to be moved for years. Her son is a minor. They have both been found to be refugees.

Child abuse redress scheme would exclude offshore detention victims, lawyers say (GA, 7 February 2018)
"A national redress scheme was one of the key recommendations of the landmark child abuse royal commission, offering a way to compensate survivors without forcing them to resort to costly and prolonged civil action." However, the government has proposed it only be available to citizens or permanent residents.

ETA: This terrifying account of the removal of a refugee family from a Queensland community will tell you what this government thinks of families.

Small numbers of refugees continue to escape Manus Island and Nauru for the United States. Despite this excellent news, thousands are still being left behind, in increasing desperation. Also in good news: last year, Australia accepted a record number of humanitarian arrivals.

Last Friday, a group of refugees on Manus Island were attacked, allegedly by members of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force.

We keep refouling people - deporting them to danger. This Tamil asylum seeker, who may be tortured in Sri Lanka, is just the latest example. Meanwhile on Manus, asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected are being told that they cannot be deported because of the danger to them in their home countries, but that they cannot settle on either Papua New Guinea nor in Australia. Plus the US is not taking people from its list of Muslim-majority countries. Where are these refugees supposed to go? The moon?

I've wanted to comment for some time on the latest group of our fellow Australians the rest of us are supposed to fear and hate: Sudanese immigrants. As it turns out, the supposed rash of crimes by "African gangs" was - I can't do better than Overland's headline: Total and utter racist bullshit. "Right from the beginning, the whole ‘African gangs’ beat-up relied on errors, distortions and flat-out lies."

Good news first: First Dog on the Moon on the rescue of cartoonist "Eaten Fish", who is now safe in Norway.

Manus refugee attacked for second time amid tension over Australian centres (20 December 2017, 10 am). This is the refugee who has never received the necessary treatment for the machete injury to his arm; he was attacked in Lorengau's market.

Manus Island protesters block access to refugee accommodation, supplies (ABC, 19 December 2017). They preventing food, medicine, and medical help from reaching the refugees at the East Lorengau detention centre, and are prevented refugees from leaving. Behrouz Boochani Tweeted on 20 December that the blockade had ended.

'I will kill you': video contradicts Peter Dutton's claim refugees on Manus were lying about being threatened by locals (GA, 11 December 2017). #TellUsTheTruth

A Moonlight Tour of the Damned (Mark Isaacs, 11 December 2017). The writer's visit to Manus. “Chauka [solitary confinement at Manus] was Australia’s Guantanamo prison. I was put in there three times. I slept in a shipping container. There was no air-conditioning, no breezeway, no door, no toilet door, no shower curtain, so the guards could watch you at all times. The bed was made out of wood. One time, they handcuffed me for seventy-two hours.” I also want to highlight this: "There are attempts to beautify the narrow corridors of shipping container bedrooms: love hearts painted on doors, colourful landscape murals, and little gardens." It gives the lie to the claims that the centre was in disrepair because of the detainees.

The next time someone tries to shift the spotlight away from the mistreatment of refugees by talking about homelessness in Australia, point them to Manus detainee Walid Zazai's Christmas message from manus to homeless people of Australia.

A Tamil man has been forcibly returned to Sri Lanka, where he is at risk of torture and rape, after missing the crash deadline to apply for protection in Australia. 29 Sri Lankan asylum seekers were flown back after their boat sank near the Cocos Islands.

Australia is wilfully damaging the health of children on Nauru to make a point – and it is appalling (SMH, 12 December 2017). "When we visited Nauru as paediatric specialists three years ago, we were asked to see 30 of the 100 children being detained on the island. Among them was a six-year-old girl who had tried to kill herself and a two-year-old boy with such severe behaviour problems a doctor had prescribed anti-psychotic medicines. Their parents were in despair. They had fled persecution, trying to save their children from harm, but had ended up imprisoned on a remote island, without hope. We left with the view that these were the most traumatised children we had ever consulted on, far worse than children we had seen in Australia, Africa, Asia or Europe. Three years later, 43 of those children remain on the island."

Calls to adopt child abuse inquiry's recommendations on immigration detention (GA, 18 December 2017)

'This republic breaks all borders': a dialogue with Behrouz Boochani on Manus (SMH, 23 December 2017). Profound and inspiring philosophical, political, spritual. His manifesto is this Letter from Manus Island. Here's a review of Boochani's movie Chauka, Please Tell Us The Time, shot by mobile phone.

UNHCR Fact Sheet on Situation of Refugees and Asylum-Seekers on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea (UNHCR, 15 December 2017)

Does Australia run the most generous refugee program per capita in the world? (RMIT / ABC Fact Check, 21 December 2017). SPOILERS: No. Or, as Fact Check puts it, Misleading. #TellUsTheTruth

As others see us: UNHCR says Australia abandoned refugees, must clear up the mess it made (Eye Witness News, Jonhannesburg, South Africa)

You can donate to the Australian Red Cross to help refugees and asylum seekers in crisis in the community.

Border Force tells Nauru refugees to separate from family if they want to settle in US (GA, 6 December 2017)

Two beliefs struggle in my mind: the belief that what is being done to asylum seekers inside and outside Australia is being done because they aren't white; the belief that governments who set aside the law for some people will set it aside for all of us if it suits them. Tipping the balance in the direction of the latter: US once locked up white Australian immigrants in 'horror' camps akin to Manus and Nauru (GA, 20 November 2017)


Facts and figures (note the dates on some of these):

Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts? (Parliamentary Library research report, March 2015).

Fact sheets, statistics, etc, from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

Immigration Department's asylum seeker data breach costs taxpayers nearly $1m in legal fees (ABC, 13 July 2017) | Immigration investigation judged 'unfair' after asylum seeker data breach (SMH, 18 September 2015) | Scott Morrison ensured asylum seeker data breach probe failed, court finds (GA, 18 September 2017)

Australia has spent $9.6bn on asylum seeker policy in four years, says report  (GA, 12 September 2016) | Transfield's $1.1b offshore processing contract farce (The Saturday Paper, 17-23 September 2016): "A blistering audit of the offshore detention program reveals a system defined by untendered contracts and preferential deals raises billions of dollars’ worth of questions." | Missing documents, unskilled staff, poor value for money: Auditor-General lashes immigration detention (SMH, 14 September 2016) | Offshore detention cost taxpayers $5bn in four years – and asylum seekers remain in limbo (GA, 18 July 2017)

Scott Morrison may gloat but asylum seekers' boats haven't really stopped (GA, 11 December 2014). "For all the slogans and military operations, over 54,000 people have boarded boats across the Indian Ocean this year [2014], with around 20,000 in just the two months of October and November."

Meanwhile, overseas:

As Germany struggles to form a government, asylum rules emerge as a key dividing line (WP, 2 December 2017). Temporary protection visas and family reunification. On a more positive note: German pilots refuse to carry out deportations (Deutsche Welt, 5 December 2017). "At the same time, refugees are appealing their deportation orders in record numbers - and winning."

Supreme Court Allows Full Enforcement of Trump Travel Ban (Snopes, 4 December 2017).

Trump casts immigrants as dangerous criminals, but the evidence shows otherwise (WP, 24 March 2017) "... immigrants, including those here illegally, commit crimes at lower rates than do native-born Americans."