AFFMA - Association OF Fee Free migration Agents

From the President’s desk

Dear Valued Readers,

A very warm welcome to the June edition of our Newsletter from AFFMA’s newly elected President. Following our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, 22 June 2016, AFFMA is proud to announce that our Board is now filled with talented and committed members, fit to steer AFFMA as it expands its services for refugees seeking asylum in Australia. I take this opportunity to congratulate our own CEO on completing his Juris Doctor Law degree. We are all proud of his achievement. We cannot wait to welcome him back to the “foreground” of AFFMA, as we all miss to see him there with his vibrant personality without which AFFMA would not be AFFMA.

Apart from providing pro bono legal and migration services for refugee applicants, AFFMA aims to contribute to the discussion of refugee intakes and settlement in Australia by shifting public perceptions of refugees. Since AFFMA was founded, it has had a 100% success rate in refugee visa approvals. AFFMA is now starting a new project in which we will follow up with former clients and, with their approval, share their achievements since entering Australian society. In this way, AFFMA hopes to positively contribute to the discussion on the successful resettlement of different cultural groups within our multicultural society that is fast becoming a model to the rest of the world. My vision for AFFMA is for it to become a beacon of light in the darkness of fear, for it to inform and advise influential stakeholders as well as the public, changing their perspectives on migration.

Australia is about to vote in a general election. It is worth reflecting on the direction that the people of Britain have recently chosen. Britain, Australia, in fact, any country in the world that is privileged to choose its own direction owes it to itself to do so responsibly. There are numerous examples in history where fear provided sufficient cover of darkness for the truth to remain hidden, for popular opinion to be manipulated.

I encourage you all to take a walk in the park and clear your mind before you vote. A stressful mind cannot make life-supporting decisions; and voters who vote in that state of mind wake up the next day working on a petition to reverse their vote such as the Brexit. Focus on what you want for Australia and let your thoughts expand. Then sit and listen to your inner voice. Trust your instinct, not your fear. If you focus instead on what you don’t want for Australia, you are more likely to end up with a headache than a right decision. When a country makes a choice based on what it does want, by focusing on the positive, on what possibilities there could be, the decision will always be powerful and expansive, as will be the future.

On that note, please focus on the positive examples of migration that you see all around you, the vibrant, bustling, bursting energy that Australia is with its multitude of cultures. Should you know someone who came to Australia as a refugee and who turned his life into a success story, please nominate this person for AFFMA to interview her or him so that AFFMA can publish and celebrate their success, as we would like to keep in our consciousness the valuable contributions that refugees make to Australian society.

Back to business: please be aware that AFFMA receives a number of local and overseas inquiries every week from clients who are not refugees or asylum seekers and who enquire about services from commercial migration agents or legal practitioners. If you are interested in referrals from AFFMA, please send us an email to <info@affma.org.au> with your background and area of expertise as well as a membership form if you are not a member. AFFMA would be happy to refer clients to you in return for a valuable donation to our charity.

Finally, our office will open again on Monday, 04 July 2016 as our volunteers and students-at-law return from their exam period. We congratulate them on surviving this stressful period and on returning immediately after to continue their unpaid services at AFFMA.

Sabine Lorenz, B.A.,LLB, Grad.Cert.Migration Law, M.Linguistics, Certification in Leadership and Transformational Coaching

Board President
MARN: 0956401

Australia’s asylum seeker deal with Cambodia

Australia’s agreement with Cambodia to resettle refugees there

On 26 September 2014, the Australian government announced that they had entered into an agreement with Cambodia to resettle refugees there.

The agreement is incredibly controversial, not only for political reasons, but also because of many human rights concerns.

This deal with Cambodia thus appears to be somewhat hypocritical of the government

When the Gillard government announced it had entered into a similar arrangement with Malaysia, the opposition at the time, now in government, had strongly opposed and criticised it, as had many refugee advocates. This deal with Cambodia thus appears to be somewhat hypocritical of the government, in light of its stance against such programs when in opposition.

However, this problem has been somewhat sidelined by the many human rights concerns refugee advocates raise regarding this agreement with Cambodia.

Former Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, the Hon. Alistair Nicholson, has described the deal as “inappropriate, immoral, and likely illegal”

He claims that it is irresponsible as Cambodia’s welfare sector is already overstretched and Cambodia does rely significantly on international aid to support its own population, particularly the many children in need of shelter and care.

In addition to this, Cambodia has extremely high levels of corruption, which puts into question the likelihood of aid being distributed fairly, or even at all.

The Non-Refoulement Principle

Whether it is illegal depends on whether the agreement would be a breach of the non-refoulement principle, a key part of the Refugee Convention, to which Australia is a signatory.

The non-refoulement principle requires that refugees are not sent to places where they are likely to face torture, cruel or inhumane punishment, or where life and liberty are at stake.

Considering the dire state of Cambodia’s own vulnerable citizens, it seems unlikely that asylum seekers would be a priority to receive help.

The Memorandum of Understanding between Australia and Cambodia on this arrangement contains a statement of support to allow asylum seekers to become self-sufficient.

However, this statement is vague, and therefore provides insufficient certainty as to the safety of these individuals. This itself is not a breach of non-refoulement but if the poverty the asylum seekers face is so bad that they are forced to return to a hostile home country, that would be a breach.

It would also be a breach if poverty forced the asylum seekers to the streets, as Cambodian authorities, without due process, regularly detain children and the homeless into “correction centres”.

Even more concerning, Cambodia infamously struck a deal with China to return twenty Uighur refugees, despite Cambodia being a signatory to the Refugee Convention, meaning that the deal would be in breach of non-refoulement.

Agreement between Australia and Cambodia into significant doubt

Can Cambodia really be trusted not to breach the Refugee Convention again and send back refugees sent to them from Australia to countries where they are likely to face torture?

In light of recent events, it would appear this is not a concern for Australia, which has likely breached the non-refoulement principle already by sending back Tamil refugees to Sri Lanka, where they have been reportedly tortured and raped.

Although the agreement stipulates that asylum seekers would voluntarily choose to go to Cambodia, the conditions of detention in Nauru and Manus Island are unlikely to leave many asylum seekers with a real choice.

It would appear that unless Cambodia can promise not to breach the non-refoulement principles and commit to aiding asylum seekers, this new agreement would only result in worse outcomes for refugees who seek asylum in Australia.

Photo courtesy of theconversation.com

Statelessness!

Statelessness, the Human Rights Commission & The Dept Of immigration And Citizenship

In 2012 the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) published the report ‘Community arrangements for asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons’. The report discusses the issue of stateless persons being kept in detention for long periods of time because they have not been granted refugee status or had substantive visa pathways made available to them.

The AHRC recommended that the Australian Government should develop a formal statelessness determination mechanism

The AHRC recommended that the Australian Government should develop a formal statelessness determination mechanism which recognises both de jure, and de facto statelessness.

The meaning of de jure statelessness can be found in Article 1 of the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”.

While there is no international agreed definition of de facto statelessness, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated in 2010 “de facto stateless persons are persons outside the country of their nationality who are unable or, for valid reasons, are unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country.”

Additionally the report recommends the establishment of administrative pathways for the grant of substantive visas to stateless persons who have been found not to be refugees or otherwise owed protection.

The Department of Home Affairs response

The DIBD response to the AHRC’s report stated that neither the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons or the the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness “prevents removal of stateless persons who are unlawfully in Australia…or requires the grant of a visa, and statelessness alone is not a ground for engaging Australia’s international protection obligations under other international human rights instruments”. However they did say they were “committed to identify situations of statelessness more rapidly and to provide for decision makers better tools for assessing the claims of stateless people.”

Nonetheless three years after the publication of the AHRC’s recommendations, the chief executive officer of the Refugee Council of Australia Paul Power said:

The lack of a statutory statelessness determination procedure coupled with no viable resolution for stateless people has meant that hundreds of stateless people in detention and in the community face an uncertain future.”

What is a stateless person?

Statelessness

The Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons terms “Stateless Person” as a ‘person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law.’
This situation can often take effect relating to many asylum seekers and refugees fleeing their country for fear of persecution or ongoing violence and breach of basic human rights.

555 people in closed detention in Australia identified as being stateless

The Australian Human Rights Commission(AHRC) found that as of “15 May 2012, there were 555 people in closed detention in Australia who identified as being stateless, 114 of whom had been detained for over 540 days”.

Australia does have obligations regarding stateless individual(s) pursuant to the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. There are guidelines for assessing claims of statelessness, however this is unfortunately not enough to produce an efficient remedy.

The reason is statelessness does not ‘provide for the grant of a visa in response to an assessment that a person is stateless’

Therefore, the global distribution of asylum seekers and refugees exemplifies what the authors of An Introduction to International Relations call the “dilemma that the world is currently facing” and in turn a third category of people has been created: stateless persons. This fact produces several questions surrounding statelessness and stateless persons.

Effect of statelessness

In its Community Arrangements For Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Stateless Persons, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) highlights the benefits of community placement. The effect of statelessness stresses the position of these people in legal limbo. The AHRC has recommended that there should be a development of formal recognition of statelessness. The rights of stateless persons should also include ways to grant them substantive visas. Thus, the AHRC provides numerous recommendations to rectify issues surrounding asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons.

Case study

Miran Hosny’s article in the New Matilda, ‘Stateless Refugee Caught in Legal Limbo’, tells the story of Ahmad Alhaj, born in Saudi Arabia but ethnically Chadian, who came to Australia seeking asylum.

This case highlights a situation in which a person can be caught in legal limbo. Ahmad came to Australia via plane from Saudi Arabia, where he left due to a life of constant discrimination.

A legal technicality meant the Australian government refused to grant him a protection visa. As a result, he was immediately detained in Villawood Detention Centre and now faces deportation to Chad (despite the fact he has never been there) merely as a result of his Chadian parentage. This deportation will render Ahmad virtually stateless.

If deported to Chad (and this is very likely), Ahmad will have no support network or means of establishing one especially that he can hardly speak Ratana, the language of the extremely marginal desert tribe, one of 200 languages spoken in Chad.

Additionally, the human rights record of the Chadian military is negligible, with Amnesty International reporting that most violations go unchallenged, and around 90,000 people are currently internally displaced.

“I am exactly like the Bidouns of Kuwait,” Ahmad stated. “They tell me I’ll get used to it [Chad]. I tell them it’s impossible. I’d rather stay here, die here or get sent to any island than go to Chad.”

Click on the links below for further stories on Australians who are now stateless:

‘Deported Drug Offender Stateless in Serbia’ – Sascha Stevanovic, who came to Australia as a two year old, is living in Serbia with no way of supporting himself, after he was deported from Australia following a lengthy period in prison on drug offences.

‘Australia to deport German-born criminal’ – The federal government defended its decision to deport a German-born Australian resident because of his lengthy and serious criminal record.

‘Stateless Man Fails to Plead his Case’ – Despite living in Australia most of his life, Mr Robert Jovicic, 42, was deported to Serbia in June 2004 after committing a string of crimes linked to his heroin addiction.

Upcoming events

Association of Fee Free Migration Agents Annual General Meeting 2015

Association Of Fee Free Migration Agents AGM - Friday 20th March 2915 - image — Association Of Fee Free Migration Agents AGM – Friday 20th March 2915

Our 2015 A.G.M. is scheduled for Friday 20th March 2015 at 5.00pm at our Newtown office to elect a new Board for the next two years.

If you are passionate about Human Rights and Refugees or just want to lend a hand, we would like to hear from you. You could nominate yourself for election or nominate someone else who must accept the nomination.

The office of President and Vice-President are reserved for pro bono migration agents only. All other office-bearers are open for all other migration agents and the general public.

The Board meets 5 times a year only.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

From AFFMA CEO’s desk

A warm welcome to 2015 and to our second issue

AFFMA CEO Joel Gedeon - image — AFFMA CEO Joel Gedeon

Your positive feedback on our first newsletter was very encouraging. We were equally moved by the numerous emails of support you sent us. Mille mercis.

This year will be an important and busy one for AFFMA as we continue to expand and play an incredibly important role in the dynamics of the onshore humanitarian field.

2015 will be a challenging year as well due to reduced revenues and lack of government funding. Since we rely heavily on volunteers in the day-to-day running of the organisation, our expenditures are minor compared to larger organisations but we still have to pay for overhead costs to enable us to carry on with our charitable work assisting asylum seekers and refugees.

Please contact our office if you wish to make a tax deductible donation. All our lawyers and migration agents generously provide their services to AFFMA on a prono basis ensuring that your donation directly benefit our humanitarian mission.

Thank you for your support. I look forward to meeting you at the AGM on Friday 20th March 2015

Joël Gédéon, JP
CEO

Famous Aussies sing to save child asylum seekers!

Raising awareness of child asylum seekers in detention centres

In late November 2014, over 30 famous Australians got together to record a song that raises awareness of child asylum seekers in detention centres.

The Guardian reported that actors, including Bryan Brown and Deborah Mailman, and former Wallabies captain George Gregan, were just some of the well- known Australians who sang: ‘We’re better than this’, directed by Darren Percival from The Voice.

Unsafe environment and lack of schooling for asylum seeker children

The song focuses on the unsafe environment and lack of schooling for asylum seeker children on Christmas Island and Nauru Island and also urges the public to join the movement to free the children. The song had over 38,000 views.

Awareness is crucial to ensure a fair and just system

Campaigns such as these create greater public awareness and understanding of what asylum seekers have to face. Awareness is crucial to ensure a fair and just system that offers everyone a chance to live their life free from torture, abuse and persecution; a chance to live the life they deserve.

Photo courtesy of capitalbay.com

Children in detention

Detaining children indefinitely is a grave human rights abuse - image — Detaining children indefinitely is a grave human rights abuse

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CROC) is universally recognised regarding the welfare of children around the world.

The foundation of CROC sets out the basic rights of children and the obligations of governments to fulfil these rights. This sounds like a solid and understandable convention that needs to be upheld and implemented.

Refugee and asylum seeker children held in detention centres

However this is not the case regarding refugee and asylum seeker children held in detention centres. Children who end up fleeing their country to seek a better life are not always accompanied by their families.

In NSW the Immigration (Guardianship Children) (IGOC) Act 1946 (Cth) and Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (Migration Act) facilitate somewhat ambiguous domestic protection for unaccompanied/separated refugee and asylum seeker children.

In an Australian Journal of Family Law article the authors highlighted the need for special consideration for children who have ‘fled conditions of peril in hope that protection will be granted.’

Detaining children indefinitely is a grave human rights abuse

Despite the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and CROC prohibiting arbitrary detention, refugee and asylum seeker adults and children are detained in Australia. Recently, there has been mounting pressure from various groups within Australia regarding the detention of asylum seeker children – including advocacy organisations, political parties, the public and the media – due to the basic understanding within the community that detaining children indefinitely is a grave human rights abuse of a particularly vulnerable group.

Issue based on Morality: Babies Born in Detention Centres

Opinions about babies born in detention range from the idea that refugee and asylum seeker babies should be given bridging visas or seen as Australian citizens, to the notion that these babies should be classed as illegal maritime arrivals and subjected to the same offshore processing as their parents.

In a recent case heard by the High Court of Australia, an asylum seeker baby boy born in Brisbane was considered an “unauthorised maritime arrival”. The Judge in this case held that the baby was not able to claim refugee or asylum seeker status. In addition, the BBC reported that several lawyers said that ‘100 similar babies could now be sent to Nauru’ based upon the circumstances of this case. This case generated many for and against arguments and in turn emphasises the severity and deepening concerns surrounding babies who are born in detention centres.

This particular case stirred up extreme negative remarks on multiple social media platforms. Conversely support emerged from the wider public. These mixed emotions lead us to question whether these children born on Australian soil should be considered Australian citizens? Or should be given protection visas at the very least? Children born in detention continues to be a controversial moral and legal minefield.

Photo courtesy of The Guardian.