The Pacific Solution: Australia’s Insular Approach to Asylum Seekers

The bill retroactively justified182 actions taken during the MV Tampa Australian policymakers to incident, and created legal pathways to halt future boat arrivals, an issue which discuss the “margins” of the had not up to that point been a priority for the Australian public.183 These Refugee Convention.189 swift changes to asylum processing became law as a chorus of Australian leaders began descri. [...] Even then, it first restricted the transfer of ailing asylum seekers to Christmas Island;220 while Australia recognized a duty of care to asylum seekers offshore, urgent transfers require litigation before asylum seekers can access the medical treatment they need on the mainland.221 Pushing Back Protection: How Offshoring and Externalization Imperil the Right to Asylum 5 Children detained in Nauru. [...] Hundreds of people refused to leave the center, citing fear of what might happen to them in the local community, given that relationships between locals and the asylum seekers could be tense and violent at times.224 The asylum seekers were left with no food, water, or electricity, with authorities raiding and destroying their belongings and shelters, until their forcible transfer to new facilities. [...] Asylum Seekers The Australian government built a sprawling Unlike the United States and the European Union, prison for asylum seekers on the island to the Australia’s geographic isolation in the Pacific Ocean tune of $185 million.232 This site first opened naturally limits migration. [...] “Nauru: Memorandum of Understanding between the Republic of of Australia’s Offshore Processing Policies,” July 2020, 14-15, Nauru and the Commonwealth of Australia, relating to the transfer to and assessment of persons in Nauru, and related issues,” Australian RCOA-Seven-Years-On.pdf.