Labor on thin ICE with plan to detain visa over-stayers

Labor's proposal to detain individuals who overstay their visas does not mirror the actions of US President Donald Trump, according to Immigration Minister Tony Burke. The government aims to address the approximately 77,000 unlawful non-citizens residing in Australia by placing more individuals in detention for a few weeks, incentivizing voluntary departures.

This approach returns to pre-2015 practices, before a shift limited detention to criminal cases rather than visa over-stayers. Burke likened the operation to what is seen in other countries, alluding to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, detentions, and deportations. However, whether children would be detained or separated from their families was not specified.

Gillian Triggs, a former head of the Australian Human Rights Commission, criticized the pre-2015 regime, noting that it held 1,100 children in detention for over a year and even indefinitely, causing severe mental and physical harm. The 2014 report by the Human Rights Commission led to significant reductions in migrant children's detention.

Despite the ban on indefinite detention without a reasonable chance of return, its applicability to this new plan remains uncertain. Labor plans to hire 100 new compliance officers and release 250 beds, plus potentially repurpose a 100-bed quarantine facility near Melbourne Airport. This would nearly double Australia's migrant detention population to around 1,100.

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre CEO Kon Karapanagiotidis expressed concern over the potential for rounding up and imprisoning whole families, questioning the necessity of increased detention capacity.