The great Australian immigration rort has hit a whole new level of ridiculousness today, with Chinese tourists and international students helping to drive an absurd 311% increase in asylum seeker claims. From The ABC:
Key points:
People claiming to be Christian, LGBTI and love children are among those seeking asylum
All arrived by plane using temporary visas, mainly for study and tourism
Experts warn bogus asylum claims are a way to overstay visas
The number of Chinese nationals applying for refugee asylum in Australia has risen by 311 per cent in just one year, according to figures from the Department of Home Affairs…
Onshore protection visa applications from those who arrived by plane from the People’s Republic of China jumped from 2,269 in 2016-17 to 9,315 in 2017-18, the data reveals.
Despite the surge in claims, Chinese nationals had one of the lowest success rates for protection visas, with the Department only recognising 10 per cent of those claims as being genuine.
The total number of onshore asylum claims for all nationalities soared 225 per cent from 8,587 in 2014-15 to 27,931 in 2017-18 with Chinese nationals making up a third of all claims over that period.
Refugee Council of Australia director of policy Joyce Chia told the ABC the number of student visas had increased with the booming international student industry in Australia, now worth an estimated $32 billion.
“I think the fact that Chinese people have increasing access [to Australia] is a large factor,” she said.
“We are seeing a massive increase in people coming by plane generally, and obviously with the massive increase in international students from places like China, it’s now much easier for those students to get to Australia”…
Transcripts from hearings at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), which has the power to overturn decisions made by the Department of Home Affairs, reveal a range of reasons applicants claim to be refugees, including being: a love child, Christian, a cult member or LGBT…
Many claimants are arriving on temporary migrant visas such as international student visas, of which there are 652,000 currently studying in Australia — including almost 200,000 are from China, according to the federal Department of Education.
Associate professor of law at Murdoch University Mary Anne Kenny said an obvious reason for the spike in questionable protection claims was the bridging visas you could obtain while awaiting a decision.
“Once you are in the country, either as a tourist or a student, if you then apply for a protection visa, you are eligible for a bridging visa,” she told the ABC.
“Depending on the type, [it] may give you the right to work and can take some time [to process] depending on how long it takes the department to process the application.
“It doesn’t cost very much to make an application and you can then extend your period of stay here, because you will be on the bridging visa while your application is [being] determined.”
Experts say the significant number of appealing applicants who do not show up to hearings raises further concerns that the process is being abused by fraudulent claims in a bid by some visa holders to extend their stay…
The average time the AAT took to decide migration cases was about a year, allowing students who had a visa cancelled or expired to extend their stay by appealing.
If unsuccessful they could then apply for a protection visa, which took an average time of about eight months to be decided…
Associate professor Anne Kenny said it was possible the number of false claims was rising because word was spreading among temporary visa arrivals of the success of others in lengthening their stay.
So, foreign students have been ‘gaming’ Australian immigration system by appealing their decisions en masse to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to extend their stay.
The reality is that Australia’s education system has become an integral part of the immigration industry and Australia’s population ponzi – effectively a way for foreigners to buy backdoor permanent residency to Australia.
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Not only are these students helping to crush-load our major cities and placing downward pressure on wages, but they are dumbing down education standards, as revealed by two recent Australian reports (here and here).
It’s time to put a leash on the university sector, starting with removing the link between foreign students studying at university and gaining work visas and permanent residency, as well as lifting entry standards. Let our universities compete on quality and value alone.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
