BY CHRIS ATKINSON
DARWIN — At 6am on March 20 five international students were woken from their sleep by someone at the door. When one of the students opened it, he was confronted by a team of immigration department officials and NT police officers.
One immigration official flashed a badge, and the entire team barged their way into the house. They fanned out to each bedroom, herded the students into the kitchen, stripped their bedsheets and began going through the students' personal belongings and documents, throwing what they wanted in plastic bags.
The officials told the students they had breached the conditions of their visas, that their visas were thereby revoked and they were instructed to purchase tickets on the next available flight to their country of origin or they would be deported at their own expense.
One of the students was told that if he did not pay for the air ticket, he would be placed in a detention camp. Agreeing to pay, he was escorted to the nearest ATM, forced to withdraw enough money for a one-way ticket back to Pakistan and marched to the travel agent to buy the ticket.
The supposed violations of visa conditions occurred in 2001, when the students worked longer hours than they were allowed while studying in Australia. While this had been reported and dealt with at the time, the legislation has since been changed and applied retrospectively to impose harsher punishments for visa violations.
According to Resistance member Ryk Molon, many international students do not understand the visa conditions. Also, many find that they have to work long hours to pay for living expenses as well as unexpected increases in their university course fees.
The Northern Territory University Student Union estimates that if checks were done on all international students, up to 90% would be found to have violated their visa conditions in similar ways.
So far 13 international students have been deported from Australia.
Three students are currently undergoing an appeal process. The stress of their ordeal will have obvious effects on their study and personal life. One of the students told Green Left Weekly: "We all wake at the slightest sound now."
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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