Nauru may consider sending back asylum seekers from the designated group to their home countries, as stated by the island's leader in a recently translated interview from February.
This interview has generated months-long debate, with erroneous statements that those sent to Nauru were not asylum seekers and might be sent back to their countries of origin where feasible.
Refugee Status Verified
Sources indicate that members of the cohort in question have had their asylum applications recognized by Australian authorities. Some of the men currently on the island to Nauru are among those who are refugees.
Some details of the interview was earlier disclosed, and complete version was read into Hansard by lawmakers late Monday.
Interpretation Controversy
This version presented was independently sourced, but an independently sourced interpretation obtained by a refugee support organization.
Authorities has fought against release of its official version of the interview, including securing a non-publication order in the federal court.
Addressing a official request to release the government's version, the foreign affairs minister argued that its release would “damage diplomatic standing … and our broader standing in the Pacific.”
Forced Removals and International Law
Five or more members of the NZYQ cohort have been sent to Nauru and are being housed at a detention facility on the Pacific island.
The nation is legally obliged to protect refugees under the refugees convention and must not send them back to their country of origin where they face a “real risk of being targeted.”
Even if that deportation is made through a another state – like Nauru – it is prohibited, known in global legal standards as “successive returns.”
The island nation is bound to the convention.
President's Remarks
Adeang granted the discussion in February, speaking in Nauruan to a employee, and detailing the recent deal the island had entered into with Australia to receive members of the designated group.
This agreement will see the government provide funds a maximum of $2.5 billion over three decades.
The president said those transferred by Australia would stay on the island for a 30-year period.
“Unless of course, we, your government, find a way for them to travel, for example; they are able to return,” he remarked. “The problem now is cannot return them home, these people are what you would call stateless. “Their homelands do not want them and they have no means to return. And if in the future we identify a solution to repatriate them then of course they will not complete the three-decade period, but the permit we are providing them to begin is 30 years.”
Reports suggest not one of the men transferred under the recent deal currently are stateless.
Erroneous Statements
Adeang repeatedly said – incorrectly – that individuals of the NZYQ cohort were not asylum seekers.
“For the record, these people are not asylum seekers. They are common citizens but their background is that they have had criminal convictions. “These days, they are free to roam around Australia and while they are not currently penalized but they are not of that place and regardless of Australia’s preference to deport them, they are cannot.”
Group Details
The individuals is a collection of over 350 non-residents discharged from indefinite immigration detention in Australia after a high court ruling in recently.
Their visas had been terminated on “personal conduct”, the majority as a because of a prior crime. Most have finished a prison sentence but must not be sent back to their countries of origin because they are threatened there. A number have been in Australia for decades and have Australian-citizen partners and children.
Legal and Ethical Objections
A lawmaker told the Senate that the assertion that the NZYQ cohort were not refugees was “plainly wrong.”
“Could authorities have misled them? Did … our government mislead the island's authorities? Do they support what the leader said about these people not being refugees? Are they all excluded? “And they’re probably also embarrassed by the fact that President Adeang has made it very clear he seeks to send them back from the place of origin. We know that they have fled from persecution mostly.”
A senior advocate at a refugee support organization said the lack of transparency around its third-country arrangements was “extremely worrying.”
He said the lack of disclosure weakened faith, and wrongdoing thrived in the lack of transparency of the external system.
“This document discloses initially that the island aims to return refugees to their home nations ‘if they find a way’, despite the fact that these are people the government has not returned to their home nation because they are asylum seekers. This means the Australian government has practically transferred refoulement – paying another country to do what Australia cannot lawfully do.”
He said the president's remarks – the disclosure of which was resisted by the authorities – uncovered a risky gap.
“Australia asserts it follows global standards while secretly funding for individuals to be sent back to danger via third-party deals.”
A senior lawyer of a advocacy group said the authorities had tried to withhold “nearly every detail” of its agreement with Nauru.
“Recently discovered that the island's authorities could be unwilling of fulfilling its part of this regrettable agreement.”
She said the forced removals to the island must be stopped, because the government cannot ensure people’s safety.
“Authorities is separating refugees from their lives, families and communities in Australia and banishing them to a location where they are unaccepted. Officials has understood that it could be exposing people to their demise – through withholding treatment they depend on, or by forcing them back to the states they escaped from.”
Requests for comment have been directed to the relevant departments and the island's administration.
