Talk:Illegal immigration to Australia

Asylum seekers vs illegal immigrants

I removed a section that mentioned deportation to Malaysia, using this article as a source.

The article refers to the people in question as "boat people" and "asylum seekers". Despite common usage, it's not appropriate - and certainly not NPOV - to equate asylum seekers with "illegal immigrants" - under international and Australian law, people have a legal right to travel to Australia and apply for asylum. See e.g. [1] [2].

If people want to cover asylum seekers in the article, then it needs to be renamed, and it needs to be clear on the distinction between these two categories. --GenericBob (talk) 09:13, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Just being the devil's advocate, people applying for asylum have to prove that they're asylum seekers. Until their claim is proven they're not asylum seekers, they're people who have entered Australian territory illegally. To automatically assume that all boat people are asylum seekers is not NPOV either. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, they're "people who may have entered Australian territory illegally". If they're bona fide refugees, it's legal, just might not be recognised as such until the evaluation's completed. I'm not asking for a statement that all boat people are legitimate refugees - but given that the majority (~ 80%) are eventually assessed to be legit, we shouldn't be using "illegal" as a blanket term.

(I do acknowledge that WP should have coverage of a topic that gets so much attention in Australian politics, just not under this article name.) --GenericBob (talk) 14:19, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd be a little wary of the ~80% figure. There's always a bit of (understandable) bias in favour of people claiming to be refugees, and the boat people know it. Once they're on the final leg from Indonesia to Australia, they tend to tear up their documentation (because they don't need it any more) and throw it overboard so there's no way of disproving their refugee claims. Many Iraqis have been given refugee status despite being unable to explain how they managed to travel through ten or more countries without any passports or other documentation. DFAT knows there are non-refugees in the refugee group but they're not sure who. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:51, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Refugee claims are handled by DIAC, not DFAT.

If we can find a RS for the number who destroy documentation in order to make bogus claims, I'm happy to have the article list that number as "illegal immigrants". What I don't accept is sticking the same label on the rest of the group. (Note that even among those whose claims are rejected, more than a couple have been murdered shortly after returning to their home country, which strongly suggests that DIAC's errors are not all on the side of generosity.) --GenericBob (talk) 21:47, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm aware that refugee claims are handled by DIAC, I was only pointing out what the government knows. Of course we'll never know the number who destroy documentation, not unless all boats from Indonesia are followed by a dirty great wet & dry vacuum cleaner, and all matches are removed before they depart (the Navy have rescued people from more than one burning boat where partially burnt documents were recovered before the boat sank). And yes, there have been people who have been rejected who probably would be here today had they not burned their documentation. Regardless, the fact is that they're all illegal until their status is determined, which is why people lump them together. At least all except the ones seeking asylum from persecution in Indonesia. --AussieLegend (talk) 22:06, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Nope. They're not "illegal". It's not illegal under any law for anyone to sail into Australian waters seeking asylum, regardless of whether their application is eventually successful. --122.109.102.100 (talk) 10:11, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

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