Since 2013, Canberra had established a particularly severe migration policy which prohibits Boat People from establishing themselves on the continent island.
by Isabelle Dellerba (Sydney, Correspondence)
Deputy access to the permanent residence for ten years, 19,000 refugees, who arrived in Australia before the end of 2013, will finally be able to obtain this precious sesame and turn the page of an interminable nightmare. The government announced, on Monday, February 13, that these thousands of men, women and children will have the right to settle in the long term on the continent island and then to ask for nationality. A major advance for human rights organizations, which applauded this highly anticipated decision.
Canberra does not give up his implacable migration policy, adopted in September 2013, which provides that any illegal migrant intercepted at sea is shipped in an offshore retention center and is prohibited, for life, the possibility of S ‘ Establish in Australia.
The Labor majority, in power since May 2022, only attacks the problem of the Boat People arrived before the entry into force of this law and which had lost, overnight, any prospect of the future. “It makes no sense, economically or socially, to keep them in limbo,” said Immigration Minister Andrew Giles on Sunday. For ten long years, these refugees, mostly from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran or even Burma, only had access to temporary visas, having to be renewed at regular intervals.
“Constant anxiety”
“This diet was extraordinarily difficult for them. This posed problems for them to find a job, for their health coverage, they could not pay for university studies or travel freely,” quotes Ian Rintoul, Word of the Coalition Action Refugee, which welcomes this “progress”. A progress all the more significant than from the moment when these refugees are naturalized, they will also benefit, like any other Australian, from the right to family reunification.
“We dreamed of this permanent residence for so long, I have chills!” Rejoices Mohammad Sakhvidi. Starting from Iran at the age of 16, after having crossed the Arafura Sea on a makeshift boat – between Indonesia and the Australian North Coast – he found himself locked in a 2013 detention center in 2013 For migrants under the number TQN29, before being placed in “community detention”, then finally released but with a temporary visa synonymous with precariousness.
“We will finally have a normal existence! No longer living in the constant anxiety of returning to a detention center. Do not feel hypervulnerable. Do not be afraid to defend our rights in front of our employers. Need to fight to get a hypothetical authorization to leave the territory in order to hug our loved ones. We will no longer feel excluded from the rest of the company, “he lists with relief.
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