The U.S. will likely continue to threaten Mexico with trade tariffs due to Central American migrants, and Mexico will respond with more drastic, inhumane measures. None of it will stop migration.
With parliament sitting next week, the home affairs minister is pressuring Labor to support a repeal of the medevac law. But the law has worked just as it was intended.
As part of a new ‘metering’ policy, US officials are turning asylum seekers away at ports of entry along the southern border. Thousands wait, straining the resources of Mexican border towns.
Dutton continues to insist the government could be compelled under the medevac legislation to transfer criminals, although the legislation gives the minister power to veto people on security grounds.
Unlike prior waves like the enslaved people on the Underground Railroad or Vietnam-era war resisters, they are children whose parents fear deportation after spending years in the United States.
It’s critical that the Australian government take a new direction in refugee policy and move beyond its tired rhetoric of deterrence as a justification for detaining refugees on Nauru and Manus.
Ancient Rome and its empire had the concept of asylum at its heart. Its legacy provided inspiration for centres of power around the world, but today outsiders are no longer welcome.
Immigration has featured as an issue in every Australian election since 2001. But the numbers often tell a different story from the political posturing.
Parkland, Florida, where 17 people died in a school shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018, was already a place of highly secure, gated communities, so the survivors instead united against guns and hate.
Since the Tampa affair in 2001, successive governments have been anxious to be seen as “hard-line” on asylum seekers, but the cost – to people and the country – has been too high.