Magistrate blocks deportation

Issue 

Kim White, Sydney

Last minute legal action in the Federal Magistrate's Court on August 29 resulted in an interim injunction to prevent a Bangladeshi man from being deported to India the next day. The deportation order was the immigration department's first attempt to cancel a return-pending bridging visa (RPBV) and remove the visa holder from the country since the visa was introduced last year.

The Bangladeshi man was released from Sydney's Villawood detention centre in November 2005. "Since then he has been a model resident, holding a secure job as a security guard", refugee-rights activist Ian Rintoul said on August 30. "It highlights the need for changes to these visas and changes to the law. We need a full judicial inquiry to make the department accountable for its actions."

On August 30, Greens Senator Kerry Nettle condemned the attempted deportation. "Following the failure of the latest migration legislation [to pass the Senate], the government appears to be returning to a hardline approach on asylum seekers", she said. "It is disturbing that the planned deportation was to India, when this man is from Bangladesh. Is this the 'deport and dump' attitude of old resurfacing?"

The removal-pending bridging visa, Nettle said, "was an ad hoc fix to take the pressure off the government over the long-term detention of asylum seekers. It allowed these people to be released into the community without the government losing face. Former long-term detainees now on RPBVs ... may well be facing imminent deportation with the apparent change of attitude toward this visa class."


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