Morrison rounds up asylum seekers

For broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 2 Feb 2014.

The Abbott Government has warned more than a thousand “failed” asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected but who are still living in Australia that they face further detention and possible deportation if they do not leave Australia voluntarily.

The Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce sees no justification for the Immigration Minister’s decision to order the rounding up and deportation of asylum seekers. Taskforce Deputy Chair, Sister Suzette Clark, said,

The minister fails to point out that among that number are people who have yet to exhaust the full appeal process in the courts. It also includes people who are stateless, so there is no country to which they can be deported. These people have no home!

Sister Clark said Taskforce members were concerned that Australia’s response to the challenges of displaced peoples in our modern era diminishes us as individual Australians and as a nation of peoples.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.