News

Asylum seekers, 2010

It’s summer in Australia. People are scuttling through the international airports – returning tanned from Asia or frozen from Europe

Some of those returning don’t realise that around them on their flight are people who have sought asylum and refuge in Australia, people who may have spent long months, even years in foreign camps.  The seriousness of what they are undertaking in this journey to a new country, a new home, means these are the quieter ones on the plane.

After landing, going through immigration and customs, travellers spill into the arrival hall where there are family and friends to meet the vacationers. Some of the refugees have family, clan or countrymen meeting them too. Others are assisted by government officials. Most other travellers likely do not notice, and these new arrivals to Australia will certainly not make it onto the evening news.

Within the same week it is likely there will be a few other asylum-seekers who get close to Australia the best way they know how – by boat.  They will not have been processed officially as refugees, but in time most of them will be shown to be genuine asylum seekers. This group will certainly have their arrival marked for top billing on the evening news, even if their eventual acceptance into the community as refugees never makes it to the nation’s TV screens or radio bulletins.

Refugees who come to Australia on planes and boats are outnumbered by people who fly into Australia on a visa and then go on to overstay their visa. This fact is seldom highlighted by politicians or the media.

Australians respond very differently to refugees who come by plane and those who come by boat. Fr. Bruce Duncan, C.Ss.R., kicks off the New Year by exploring this puzzling issue. “What is it about Australia,” Fr. Bruce asks, “that so many of us keep being panicked by a tiny percentage of immigrants so desperate to escape threats in their homelands that they take the enormous risks of coming by boat?”

Click HERE to go to Fr. Duncan’s article.