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SYDNEY: More than 80 per cent of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat dump their passports before landing, a report said Saturday, presenting a security nightmare for immigration authorities.
Department of Immigration and Citizenship figures published in the Sydney Daily Telegraph showed that 5,213 people arriving illegally between 2008 and 2010 had first flown to Indonesia before boarding a boat to Australia. But few of them still had their passports when intercepted in Australian waters, and some had no documentation at all.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said this week no one currently in the system being assessed had failed security checks, but opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said it was impossible to really know whether people were who they claimed to be.
“To travel by air you must have documentation. The decision to discard documentation is an act of defiance and non-cooperation with Australian authorities,” he was quoted as saying.
“The absence of documentation also leads to significant delays in processing and security assessment that detainees now complain about... The practice of discarding documentation is routine among asylum seekers using people smugglers and is designed to frustrate Australian authorities trying to determine whether a person has a legitimate asylum claim.”
“They are clearly counting on being given the benefit of the doubt,” he added.
The report came as another asylum seeker boat was intercepted off the coast of Western Australia on Friday. The boat was believed to be carrying 63 people, with the group to be transferred to Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean, to undergo security, identity and health checks.
Asylum seekers face mandatory detention in Australia as they await their visas, and immigration centres are increasingly overcrowded, prompting recent violent unrest and reports of suicides in the often remote units.
