Tribunal lets fake Iranian refugees stay in Australia

IMMIGRATION Minister Peter Dutton accused fake refugees who lie to get into Australia of displacing genuine asylum seekers who face being slaughtered in the Middle East.

Mr Dutton’s attempts to deport the Iranians have been foiled by the AAT. Picture: Gary Ramag

IMMIGRATION Minister Peter Dutton accused fake refugees who lie to get into Australia of displacing genuine asylum seekers who face being slaughtered in the Middle East.

He also expressed frustration at the huge legal cost of fighting the thousands of his deportation and other visa decisions that are being overturned by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Mr Dutton said it was costing the Australian taxpayer “tens of millions of dollars a year” to take on the AAT and that too many lawyers were willing to give free legal advice to refugees who want to appeal against deportation and other orders.

He was responding to a Herald Sun article which today revealed six Iranian boat people were caught holidaying in their homeland after lying on their visa applications about fearing for their lives if they had to return there.

“Some of these cases are infuriating,” Mr Dutton told Neil Mitchell on 3AW today.

“Without commenting on the six here, there are many cases that I look at where, on the facts available to me, you shake your head.

“These people, if they are not legitimate refugees, are displacing people who have a claim to be made, people who are being slaughtered in the Middle East now that we would want to give protection to.

Six Iranian boat people were caught holidaying in their homeland after lying on their visa applications.

“They are the ones being displaced by people who are seeking a better economic outlook.”

Asked about the fact the AAT has rejected 39 per cent of his visa decisions in the past year, Mr Dutton suggested some AAT members appointed by previous Labor Governments might have made some decisions for political reasons.

“So the Government has made a number of decisions not to renew the appointments of some of the AAT members that may have been appointed in the Rudd, Gillard, Rudd years,” Mr Dutton said.

“And in some cases we have made fresh appointments ourselves.

“So that success rate if you like, or the rejection rate, will come down over time.

“If you look at the composition of the AAT, without being critical of the AAT at all, they have a job to do, I think you will have individual people from time to time who have judgments that I wouldn’t agree with, they wouldn’t agree with mine, but, again, that’s part of the legal process.”

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The six Iranian boat people were caught holidaying in their homeland after lying on their visa applications.

But AAT bureaucrats foiled Immigration Mr Dutton’s attempts to deport the Iranians, allowing them to stay here regardless.

Documents seen by the Herald Sun reveal in each case, the Iranians, who paid people smugglers to get to Australia, were given protection visas after claiming their lives would be in danger if they returned to Iran.

The visas were cancelled by Mr Dutton, or his delegate, after the Immigration ­Department discovered they voluntarily returned to Iran and later came back to Australia.

Documents reveal:

ONE made three return trips to Iran after getting his Australian visa, including one to get married under Islamic law, an event conducted by the Iranian authorities he was supposedly terrified of;

ANOTHER claimed to be on an Iranian wanted list, but the Immigration Department later discovered the person was in no danger by returning to Iran and was an economic migrant rather than a genuine refugee;

A COUPLE who arrived by boat claimed to have no identification documents and they would be killed if they returned to Iran, but later voluntarily travelled to Iran and back to Australia on valid Iranian passports; and

TWO Iranian family members claimed to be stateless with no identity documents — a lie discovered when another family member applied to join them in Australia and provided documents to show all were Iranian citizens who were in no danger of being persecuted in Iran.

AAT bureaucrats have foiled Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s attempts to deport the Iranians.

The revelations will put further pressure on the AAT, already under fire for overturning thousands of visa decisions made by Mr Dutton or his delegate in the past year.

When asked by the Herald Sun on Monday about the Iranians having their visas reinstated by the AAT, a spokesman for Mr Dutton said he was considering his next step.

“The minister has the power to set aside AAT decisions,” the spokesman said.

“These matters will be reconsidered in due course. All matters are considered on a case-by-case basis.”

The Herald Sun is not able to name the six Iranians for legal reasons. All of them wrongly claimed in their visa applications that they faced danger in Iran if they were denied protection in Australia and deported.

Despite the AAT saying in the documents that it was satisfied the Iranian asylum seekers lied to Australian authorities about the dangers they faced if they were sent back to Iran, it still overturned the decisions by the minister to deport them and allowed them all to stay in Australia.

In one case, the AAT said it believed two family members who said they were “stateless” when they claimed that documents showing they were citizens of Iran were false. This was despite expert evidence to the AAT that the documents were genuine and had been provided by a relative of the supposedly stateless family members.

The Herald Sun last week revealed the AAT has overturned 4389 visa decisions made by Mr Dutton or his delegate in the past year.

That means that of the 11,323 ministerial visa decisions reviewed in the 12 months to April 30 this year, the AAT rejected 39 per cent of them.

One of those the AAT overturned was Mr Dutton’s decision to kick Indian sex creep taxi driver Jagdeep Singh out of the country after he admitted indecently ­assaulting a female passenger in Melbourne. The AAT also foiled Mr Dutton’s attempt to deport rapist Carl Stafford to New Zealand, despite Stafford having racked up 365 convictions in Australia.

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TRIBUNAL APPEALS

CASE ONE

Person came as an illegal boat arrival in 2009 and was granted a protection visa in 2010.

Visa was cancelled in mid-2016. The individual appealed to the AAT. In late 2016, the AAT reinstated the individual’s protection visa.

Claims were made that the individual was on an Iranian wanted list and persecution would follow if deported. They claimed to have fled using a fake passport. After getting a visa to stay in Australia, the individual contacted Iranian authorities and successfully applied for a new Iranian passport and has since used the Iranian passport to travel to and from Australia and Iran.

The individual’s Australian visa was cancelled after Mr Dutton’s delegate found the person had not fled Iran on a false identity, was not in any danger in Iran and was an economic migrant rather than a genuine refugee. The AAT accepted the person lied to gain the protection visa, but overturned the minister’s deportation decision and reinstated the person’s visa to stay in Australia.

CASE TWO

A couple arrived as boat people in 2010 and were granted protection visas in 2011 after claiming they had no identification documents and would be killed if they returned to Iran.

The minister’s delegate cancelled their protection visas after discovering they had returned to Iran in 2013 on valid Iranian passports. The AAT found they had lied on their visa applications, but still overturned the decision to kick them out of Australia.

CASE THREE

Person arrived by boat in 2011, and granted a protection visa in 2012. The minister’s delegate cancelled the visa in 2016.

The person claimed on arrival that execution was a real possibility if returned to Iran. Despite that claim, the person has since returned to Iran three times, once to get married under Islamic law.

The AAT reinstated the protection visa after ruling that just because the person had made three return trips from Australia to Iran, it did not mean the person didn’t fear persecution in Iran.

CASE FOUR

Two family members arrived in 2014 and claimed to be refugees whose lives were at risk if they were sent back to Iran. They claimed they were stateless, had no documents to support their identities and were discriminated against in Iran because of their ethnicity. Their story unravelled when an application for a visa was made for another family member in Iran to join them in Australia. Documents provided to back the visa application indicated the people given refugee visas were actually Iranian citizens who didn’t face any discrimination or persecution in Iran. After authorities in Australia discovered this, the two family members argued the documents the relative had provided in support of the visa application were false.

The AAT reinstated their visas after accepting the documents were fake, even though an expert gave evidence to the AAT that the documents were genuine.

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