Immigration Compliance operations are raging all over Australia.
Immigration police are searching through the Northern Territory vineyards, Fruit and vegetable farms in outback NSW,
Building sites, factories and restaurants in the city - there is no part of Australia too isolated for the immigration
officials to visit. It seems that they have an unlimited budget for this important work seizing and arresting workers
who have overstayed their visas or even worse those who are working whilst on bridging visas instead of accepting
handouts to stay alive. DIMIA is getting information from other government departments such as schools and sources yet
unknown.
Targetting Rural workers A Catholic priest reported from a NSW country town that two weeks ago, Immigration officials
came into town and proceeded to drink with the locals at the pub, pumping them for information on big farms and asking
who has hired workers to bring in the harvest. They are noted for paying for information.
The next morning the local police were posted onto the back roads where workers are travelling to the farms and they
are then stopped, searched and passports demanded. This priest reported a Bangladeshi man having a gun held to his head
whilst he knelt on the ground during a search. A young woman from South America was recently picked up, held in a police
cell and refused leave to go home to breast feed her baby. This woman had paid a migration agent to lodge her case and
believed her visa was in order. The Migration agent had vanished when she needed the matter verified and it has now been
found that her case was never lodged. This woman is married with a baby.
Targetting SriLankans
Meanwhile in Melbourne pressure is being put on Sri Lankans. Many have been issued with 28 day letters telling them that
they have 28 days to buy tickets for their return. They are then called up to visit the Compliance section of DIMIA and
threatened that if they do not sign to go that they and their families will be taken into detention. Some have been so
terrified that they have signed and returned home. The problem is that the political situation in Sri Lanka is very
volatile at present with elections in April and the peace process struggling. It seems as if DIMIA are trying to shovel
people out of the country before the country situation deteriorates and return becomes impossible. Some families have
been here for up to ten years and many have children born in Australia. Their work rights have been rescinded making
survival difficult.
Targeting Children
When children are registered for Primary or secondary school the forms now demand information on visa status plus
photocopies of visas etc. This has two purposes-one to provide a check of children whose parents are on temporary visas
and the second is to ensure that free education is not available to children whose parents hold certain visas. This past
week a mother booked her daughters into a primary and secondary school, paid the voluntary levies and bought the
uniforms. She was called into the office 4 days later and told that her daughter had to be removed from school unless
her parents paid $ 11, 000 dollars –yes no mistake $11, 000 annual fees for a suburban high school. Ah the great
generous country we have become –even too mean to provide education to children.
Meanwhile my uncle from the Bush tells that he and his neighbours lose thousands of dollars of sheep and cattle each
year. A truck pulls up, a good dog and ten thousand dollars worth of animals are stolen and sold across the border two
days later. When they complain to the politicians and police, they are told that they don’t have the resources to stop
it.. Curious isn’t it how the government can find the resources to scour the land seeking workers who are working.
When people are seized in the country they are often carted off to a desert detention centre, with no access to lawyers
or chance to say goodbye to friends. They are just disappeared until someone in a detention lets us know that there is a
new arrival. We are the witnesses. Please ask around and record similar incidents of this government’s obsessive
behaviour towards people who are not Australian.