Up to 500 asylum seekers, including families with young children, have not made a formal application for protection, just a day out from a government deadline that could see them deported from the country.
In May, the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, gave nearly 7,000 asylum seekers living in the Australian community a deadline of 1 October to apply for protection or be barred from ever applying. He described them as “fake refugees” and said they were bleeding Australian taxpayers of millions of dollars in welfare payments each year.
Many of the asylum seekers had been living in Australia for several years, but had been barred from applying for protection by the minister until just months before the deadline was announced.
Several thousand were already on waiting lists with legal advocacy services to assist with their applications.
The minister’s announcement sparked furious activity within refugee legal services, aided by “an army of lawyers” who offered pro-bono services, philanthropic donations and community support, Tanya Jackson-Vaughan from the Refugee Advice and Casework Service in Sydney, told the Guardian.
“We’ve gone from providing about 25 free legal sessions a week to about 125. That’s because we have been working seven days a week, nights, and we had an outpouring of pro-bono support from some of the top-tier law firms in Sydney.
“We’re doing this on the smell of any oily rag, we hope that we’ve managed to assist most people.”
With a day before the deadline, about 500 asylum seekers across the country have not lodged protection applications, most of those in Victoria and NSW.
Those who have not lodged, legal service providers say, are some of the most vulnerable asylum seekers, including people suffering acute mental health issues, those with a history of torture and trauma, and others who, because of language difficulties or other barriers, do not understand the legal process for formally applying for protection.
About half of those who have not applied are understood to be families with young children, including Rohingya families who fled Myanmar.
“People are expected to recall what’s happened to them, and to provide a coherent, chronological protection claim, but many of those we’ve seen coming into our office the past month or two, these are some of the most vulnerable. We’ve had Rohingya families with little kids, people who have really suffered and have struggled to survive in the Australian community because of their vulnerabilities,” Jackson-Vaughan said.
“Our fear is that people with genuine claims, but who have a lack of awareness what this deadline means, won’t be lodging an application, because they didn’t realise that was required of them.”
The executive director of Refugee Legal, David Manne said the deadline was “arbitrary and unfair”.
“Thousands of people were left in legal limbo for years without being allowed to apply for protection, desperately wanting to but not being allowed to, and then sent an arbitrary deadline of 1 October or risk of being deported to danger without even having their claim heard.”
Manne said his organisation had massively scaled up its legal assistance, supported too by philanthropic donations, hundreds of volunteers and pro bono legal support. But cases were still coming.
“Many of the people we are talking about have fled from brutality, have been deeply traumatised and then suffered a second wave of suffering in limbo in Australia. One of the central reasons that some people are coming to us just before the deadline is that they are confused and frightened. And they are still coming. We will be helping anyone that needs it right up until midnight on 30 September.”
Both Refugee Legal and Refugee Advice and Casework Service say they will remain open, over public holidays and weekends, to assist last-minute applicants.
Any move by the government to deport an asylum seeker without fully assessing their claim for protection would almost certainly be met by legal challenge.
All of the asylum seekers subject to the 1 October deadline raised a prima facie protection claim when first interviewed upon arrival in Australia and so were “screened in” and allowed to live in the country.
An immigration department spokesperson said there was limited time for those who remained to apply either online or by mail for a Temporary Protection Visa or Safe Haven Enterprise Visa.
“Failure to lodge a TPV or SHEV application will be taken as an indication that an IMA (illegal maritime arrival) no longer intends to seek protection in Australia,” the department said.
“IMAs who do not apply and who do not make arrangements to leave Australia may be detained and removed from Australia.”
Since May, refugees lawyers and advocates have protested against the arbitrary and “unreasonably tight” deadline, but the government is concerned some of the cohort have lived in the community for several years without a deep analysis of their backgrounds.
The 7,000 asylum seekers who had not applied for protection when the deadline was announced are part of the so-called “legacy caseload” of about 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived by sea between late 2012 and early 2014.
Roughly 23,000 of that cohort had already applied for protection when the deadline was announced. Thousands are still waiting for their applications to be assessed, a process that could take years longer still.
