New Report: Australia’s Visa Cancellation Powers Have Created a Prison to Deportation Pipeline
Dr Claire Loughnan, a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Melbourne, was the recipient of one of Melbourne Social Equity Institute's inaugural Community Engagement Grants. The grant supported a collaboration with the Visa Cancellation Working Group, a national network of legal organisations, to map the gaps in legal assistance to imprisoned people facing visa cancellation.
As a result of that collaboration, Dr Loughnan and Sanmati Verma, Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, have co-authored a new report: Prison to Deportation Pipeline: How Mandatory Visa Cancellation Creates a Parallel Form of Imprisonment for Non-citizens. The report details a two-tiered legal system and the discriminatory treatment that migrants and refugees face in prison.
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In the past decade, visa cancellations on 'character' grounds have increased more than tenfold.
The length of time taken to decide visa revocation requests has also risen — increasing from an average of 149 days in 2015 to 641 days in 2022.
This has led to a significant rise in people held in immigration detention., and it has also led to what the authors of the report call a ‘prison to deportation pipeline’ for non-citizens who have already served a prison sentence.
The report finds that people on visas are set up to fail by discriminatory treatment in prison, with limited access to parole, rehabilitation, and education hindering their ability to have their visas reinstated.
While Australian citizens are granted liberty after serving a sentence, people who are subject to visa cancellation are ‘pipelined’ from prison to immigration detention and deportation from Australia.
Dr Claire Loughnan said: "Visa cancellation powers have led to the permanent separation of families, disrupted communities, and have returned visa holders — including long-term permanent residents — to destitution in countries with which they have no connection.
“The mental toll that non-citizens experience in prison is immense, with anxiety over visa cancellations creating an environment where many feel compelled to abandon their fight for justice. The prison-to-deportation pipeline is a direct result of the discriminatory treatment of visa-holders in prison — it must be urgently addressed,” said Dr Loughnan.
Sanmati Verma said the government’s visa policy leaves non-citizens in limbo, severely limiting their chances of rehabilitation.
“People on visas face a two-track prison system, where they cannot access programs, parole and post-release support available to others, simply because of their visa status. Young people on visas are missing out on crucial schooling and rehabilitation, for no other reason than their visa status.
“This system sets up visa-holders to fail and to lose hope from the moment they are sentenced. It must be dismantled,” Sanmati Verma said.
The publication of the report comes as the Migration Amendment Bill 2024 is before the Australian Parliament. The Bill amends the Migration Act 1958 (the Migration Act) to strengthen the legislative framework relating to the removal from Australia of certain non-citizens who are on a removal pathway. These new laws will expand Government and Ministerial powers to remove barriers to deportation, enable the persistence of punitive visa conditions for those who remain in Australia, and overturn protection decisions.