Malaysia, China top migrant ‘red flag’ list

A secret immigration database has seen a spike in the number of Chinese and Malaysian nationals to be ‘red flagged’.

11,000 new names of Chinese nationals added to the “red flag” list in the past year. Picture: istock

A secret immigration database has seen a spike in the number of Chinese and Malaysian nationals to be “red flagged” at Australia’s borders, with 11,000 new names of Chinese nationals added to the list in the past year.

This amounts to a 23.6 per cent increase in Chinese citizens on the Person Alert List maintained by the Department of Home Affairs.

China has the second-highest number of citizens on the database, with 58,724 named.

Malaysia, with 68,417 nationals subject to red flags, remains the most common nationality of ­people on the list. It alone accounts for 11.8 per cent of all red flags, after a 37.2 per cent increase in the number of its citizens on the list over 12 months. New Zealand (with 43,470 list­ings), India (36,168) and Britain (28,770) round out the top five ­national list.

Citizens on the personal alert list

John Coyne, a border security expert from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the figures obtained by The Australian reflected increased awareness of the risks Australia was concerned about. Dr Coyne said the government appeared, in particular, to be looking at would-be visitors from China and Malaysia, leading to the increase in citizens of both countries on the list.

“I’m not surprised that that’s the case,” Dr Coyne said. “There’s probably very good reasons for those increases and it maps against the intelligence publicly released in regards to onshore ­applications for temporary visas and protection visas — and, secondly, for violations of terms of employment. “The two highest countries for both of those are China and ­Malaysia.”

The Department of Home ­Affairs confirmed that the number of onshore protection claims fell by 12 per cent last financial year

“The department is focusing on identifying new methods and tools being used by facilitators of unmeritorious visa claims and responding to the changing threat profile,” a spokesperson said. “Response strategies include increased intelligence threat ­assessments and deploying targeted risk profiles for current and emerging hot-spots and trends.”

The department also said there was an 89 per cent increase last fin­ancial year “in the number of people interdicted” by airline ­liaison officers with the Aus­tralian Border Force who are based at international airports around the world.

“These people held fraudulent documents or did not have genuine intentions to travel.”

According to the statistics released under Freedom of Information, 35,760 Malaysians and 12,442 Chinese nationals were on the Person Alert List due to “suspect genuineness” of their potential plans to come to Australia.

Another 15,109 Chinese nat­ionals and 12,934 Malaysians were on the list because of a “debt to commonwealth”. There were also 9867 Malaysians and 5735 Chinese nationals listed as “overstayer”.

Pakistan has the most citizens, 281, listed over national security concerns, ahead of Iran (280) and Lebanon (215).

Iraq has 152 citizens on the list over national security concerns, while China has 147, Afghanistan has 135 and India has 130. Australia has 76 nationals listed over such concerns.

Chinese nationals also top the list for “Breach Visa Conditions”, with 3154 citizens listed, ahead of India (1493) and Malaysia (1350).

There were also 11,531 New Zealand citizens listed for serious or high profile crimes — more than any other nationality.