Answer:
Title and Introduction
This report tends to assess the role of the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia in dealing with and resolving the issue with immigration that Australia have been facing very critically since 2001. Since the year 1945 during the time when federal portfolio for immigration was formed. Since then, the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia have officially acknowledged 7.5 million immigrants (Watkins 2017). The immigrants include 800000 refugees along with various other humanitarian entrants.
In order to give entry to the permanent immigrants there is two formal acknowledgement program of the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia. The first is Migration program for the people with elevated skills level in certain fields and again those who arrive with families. Another similar program is the Humanitarian program arranged by the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia (Altbach and Reisberg 2017). This program is for the refugees and the other immigrants who are allowed under other ground of humanitarianism. As informed by Castles (2016), The Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia works directly with the UNO to give shelter to the offshore as well as the onshore entrants. The offshore entrants are in fact referred to Australia under the UNHCR program. Such immigrants are settled in Australia and are able to find means of basic livelihood and education owing to the initiatives of the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia. This department also conducts an international survey in order to identify the people who are facing human right abuses staying in their native country and incidentally have some form of linkage with the Australian mainland. Such people are also offered a refugee license under the offshore scheme.
In contrast, the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia also have the onshore program under the immigration scheme. People who lodge in and then claim asylum are given domestic protection under the Australian territory by the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia.
Summary of problem to be addressed
In spite of having a highly controlled migration framework public concerns regarding by-boat arrivals of the asylum seekers who enter the Australian main land in an unauthorised way have increased highly. In the context of the unauthorised and latent boat arrivals in Australia, have increased tremendously in Australia. The Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia relies absolutely on the Australian Coalition and Labour government for adopting to certain measures (Castles 2016). However, internal policy problems between the Coalition and the Labour government is preventing Australia from deterring future illegal boat arrival. That is why the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia is also not able to combat with the issues like border security concerns as well as the issue of people smuggling.
Background information/ outline of the relevant social policy or proposed policy change
The two major political parties in unison have stated that necessary policy frameworks have been introduced for deterring the illegal and unauthorised boat arrivals in the future. According to the ideas of Breunig, Deutscher and To (2017), one of the major policy changes that the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia had proposed and was accepted by the Supreme Court of Australia was the immigration detention for the unauthorised arrivals. The labour Government during 1992 sanctioned this policy. The labour government recently in the 2012 introduced the framework of offshore processing arrangement amidst the Pacific. Current one major policy change that is under debate and future discretion is that whether the onshore refugee asylum seekers should be allowed with temporary or totally permanent visa protection in the Australian territory.
However, after 2013 when the Coalition government was formed, the position of the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia began to change completely. The major policy difference that have been introduced by the secretariat of the Coalition Border Security Ministry is arrangement of the offshore regional processing at the Nauru as well as the PNG. Presently, more than 1300 asylum seekers have been processed offshore (Betts 2018). The Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia in consultation have declared that none of these asylum seekers would be allowed to stay back or join the workforce of the organised sector in Australia. As informed by Rivas and Bull (2018), the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia have declared in a press meet that in case if these asylum seekers are encouraged and allowed to settle and work in Australia, this would in turn work as a pull factor to entice the other illegal as well as unauthorised boat arrivals.
Discussion of change/ no change policy
According to the critics like Köngeter and Smith (2015), the coalition government have taken a remarkable step in the form of the regional pacific processing policy and thereby not allowing the entrants to enter the main land. However, in sharp contrast, critics like Markus (2014), have asserted that this policy of the government have been against the UNHCR ethical standards. They have highlighted that many of the long term detainees who Have been staying the detainment centres since 2013 have been the victim of poor an at times adverse mental health. Critics like Savic et al. (2016), have supported the latter view speaking of the chances of physical harm of the children and specially women at the detention centre at Nauru. A case was also launched in the High Court of Australia regarding the PNG centre of detention that have been claimed to be unconstitutional. Considering the overall scenario, the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia is under significant pressure of developing alternative solutions of resettlement for those families and individuals at least who have been affected in the detention centres.
Recommendations for change and Conclusion
Analysing the current scenario of the illegal and unlawful immigration in Australia and the currently role played by the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in firstly, it is worth mentioning that there is no short term and readymade solution for this issue. So far as the long term measures are concerned, the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia can be recommended to reconsider the opening of the offshore processing regime. Again, if some recommendations are required to be provided regarding the practice of non-deference, it is advisable that the Department for Immigration and Protection of Border in Australia develop better pathways of migration, rather than the policy of boat arrivals. The regional cooperation framework should be highlighted. This framework would be responsible for the provision of protection more generally for all the refugees under the region
Another feasible suggestion include discouraging the asylum, seekers from staying away off the various activities like people smuggling. This can be achieved by providing alternative pathways to legal migration to any country that accepts immigration like that in Australia. Australia can also develop the effective strategies of processing in the region like as Malaysia as well as Indonesia
The last and the most rightful strategy is that the offshore processing centres of the PNG as well as Nauru should be provided with re-settlement of the people in Nauru as well as PNG.
In fact turn backs can be created so that no further illegal arrivals are prevented.
Reference List
Altbach, P.G. and Reisberg, L., 2017. Global: Another Week, Another Scandal: Immigration Dilemmas and Political Confusion. In Understanding Higher Education Internationalization (pp. 103-106). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.
Betts, K., 2018. Immigration and public opinion in Australia: how public concerns about high migration are suppressed.
Breunig, R., Deutscher, N. and To, H.T., 2017. The Relationship between Immigration to Australia and the Labour Market Outcomes of Australian?Born Workers. Economic Record, 93(301), pp.255-276.
Castles, S., 2016. Rethinking Australian migration. Australian Geographer, 47(4), pp.391-398.
Knoch, U., McNamara, T. and Elder, C., 2017. Submission to the Australian Government Department of Immigration and Border Protection on the discussion paper ‘Strengthening the test for the Australian Citizenship’. Google Scholar.
Köngeter, S. and Smith, W. eds., 2015. Transnational Agency and Migration: Actors, Movements, and Social Support. Routledge.
Markus, A., 2014. Attitudes to immigration and cultural diversity in Australia. Journal of Sociology, 50(1), pp.10-22.
Rivas, L. and Bull, M., 2018. Gender and Risk: An Empirical Examination of the Experiences of Women Held in Long-Term Immigration Detention in Australia. Refugee Survey Quarterly.
Savic, M., Chur-Hansen, A., Mahmood, M.A. and Moore, V.M., 2016. ‘We don’t have to go and see a special person to solve this problem’: Trauma, mental health beliefs and processes for addressing ‘mental health issues’ among Sudanese refugees in Australia. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 62(1), pp.76-83.
Watkins, J., 2017. Australia’s irregular migration information campaigs: border externalization, spatial imaginaries, and extraterritorial subjugation. Territory, Politics, Governance, 5(3), pp.282-303.
