Shoshana “Asylum seeker numbers world wide have gone down significantly in the last couple of years because of changed circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

That is called “spurious correlation” – it can be observed, equally, that the number of fraudulent asylum seekers attempting to enter Australia secretly has gone down because of the circulation into common knowledge of our policy of detention as well as the policy of hefty gaol terms for smugglers– eg – illegal immigrants, knowing of the greater risk of detection and detention, do not attempt to evade our migration protocols in the first place.

“The ones who are detained, often for years, are the ones most likely to be assessed as refugees and granted visas. The ones who are not detained are the most likely to fail in their refugee claims.” –

The ones detained for years are the ones who deliberately put up barriers to being classified. They are more likely non-genuine hoping that the “emotion” generated from their self-inflicted plight will work for them.

It reminds me of the Indian practice of deliberately disfiguring and maiming their children to make then appear more “pitiful and appealing” as beggars.

As has been said before – there travek through plenty of other places in the world before they reach us but they travel the extra distance and try to evade migration to illegally enter Australia , disrespecting and flouting our migration requirements as “economic refugees”.

Actually the reason people are in detention for years is that the system is failing them and us.

The system of investigation of asylum seekers is set up to obstruct and delay claims for asylum. As I began explaining before(but the 350 word limit was not enough to complete) was the 'process' set up by DIMIA.

Briefly - case officer, RRT - Refugee Review Tribunal, Federal court/Full federal court/High court/Minister intervention. All of these steps can take 3-12 months each which is why someone found to be a genuine refugee can be incarcerated for a very long time... with refugees recently being freed after 3, 4, 5 years locked up.

Why weren't they found to be genuine in the first case officer interview ? - poorly trained staff, political pressure on DIMIA to obstruct cases.

Col; “the number of fraudulent asylum seekers attempting to enter Australia secretly has gone down because of the circulation into common knowledge of our policy of detention”

Que fraudulent?

Over 90% of those detained are found to be genuine refugees and given visas. It’s just that it takes years.

Col:“The ones detained for years are the ones who deliberately put up barriers to being classified. They are more likely non-genuine hoping that the “emotion” generated from their self-inflicted plight will work for them”

I used to be an Investigations Officer for the tax office - I'm not a complete idiot or a pushover for a sob story. In fact it’s partly through this experience that I recognise how badly DIMIA conducts interviews.

I've sat in on a few DIMIA interviews and been gobsmacked when I’ve seen the resulting report where the interviewer has cast doubt on what the asylum seeker has said. They could have asked for clarification or additional proof at the time but didn’t. If they had, a simple misunderstanding would have been sorted. Instead the DIMIA person interprets it as the person being a liar, and decides not to believe the rest of their story.

An example – the interviewer asks if the interviewee drives. This gets translated incorrectly between the interviewer-translator-interviewee and back again – are you a driver – and the interviewer records the asylum seeker is a taxi driver.

Next interview, the asylum seeker is asked about being a taxi driver and denies it. It’s inferred he’s lying because he now won’t admit to being a taxi driver. This taxi driver nonsense follows him for years. He has no idea where this has come from until he listens to previous interview tapes. By this time his English is good enough for him to understand where the misunderstanding arose.

This kind of thing happens all the time. The system is a mess.

Denying protection and refuge to people in need is nothing to be proud of. Locking innocent people up for years in an attempt to deter others is nothing to be proud of

Shoshana
This is fascinating information. I have worked as a housing officer and can vouch for similar experiences in processing applicants. Often depends on the attitude of the interviewing officer as to the result of the claim.

Col and others appear to be writing from a set of prejudices rather than from accurate knowledge.

My experience with accepted refugees is that the majority simply want to get on with their lives in their new country - just like us caucasians. And the majority are decent law abiding people just like the rest of us. Quelle surprise.

shoshana, from your first hand experience, what surprises me a little is that you are calling for a dismantling of the system, rather than the logical issue of better training of interviewers.

Some of what you say doesn't ring true, i.e. that the interviewers are kind of pre-disposed to erect barriers to would be refugees. What you described was just irresponsible and unprofessional conduct, dereliction of duty, not taking things seriously etc. so why not address this rather than calling for 'no more detention centres' ?

It appears to me that if this was addressed, and interviews handled effectivly and efficiently, the problems of mis-assessment and subsequent long delays in processing would dissappear.

The steps described by Mirana, or levels of appeal etc, only happen because of this problem it appears. Where people realize that they have not effectively conveyed their true situation to the interviewer, so they appeal. Solve the 'interviewer' problem and you also solve the 'long stays in detention' issue.

Am I missing something here ?

Yes, U R missing something, BD; the incarceration of many innocent, men, women, children in what are, in essence, concentration camps. We did not do that to previous refugees - why now?

Of course interviewers require appropriate training but that is hardly a panacea to the psychological scarring of forcible internment.