Coronavirus: Immigration forced to charter flights to deport criminals

Criminals will be sent back to their home countries on charter flights to combat the shortage of grounded commercial planes.

Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge. Picture: Martin Ollman

Criminals clogging Australia’s immigration detention centres will be sent back to their home countries on charter flights or moved to Christmas Island to combat the shortage of commercial planes grounded by COVID-19 border ­restrictions.

Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge said the government would continue deporting the 1100 of 1550 detainees with criminal records, who were being sent directly to immigration centres from prison due to difficulties getting them out of the country.

The Australian can also reveal the US resettlement program has continued through the pandemic with 803 refugees — including 378 on Nauru and 366 in Papua New Guinea — travelling to the US.

As of July 31, 361 refugees, asylum seekers and non-refugees were still in PNG and Nauru, with authorities working through COVID-19 processing delays towards filling the 1250 capacity under the US resettlement deal.

The Department of Home ­Affairs said further departures were “scheduled in the coming weeks and months”.

In a bid to release pressure on the immigration detention system, the government has locked in six charter flights to New Zealand, Britain and Europe removing foreign nationals with criminal records, including about 10 expected to be deported this week.

Four charter flights have been sent to New Zealand in the past few weeks carrying 61 criminals, including senior outlaw motorcycle gang figure Ray Elise, the former Rebels Victorian president.

A June flight sent eight criminals back to Britain, including ­notorious Brisbane murderer Christopher Clark Jones.

New Home Affairs Department figures obtained by The Australian reveal total immigration detention costs have fallen more than $1bn a year since Labor was in power, reducing to $649m in 2019-20. The cost of “held detention”, including hotels being used to house 184 men sent to Australia under the scrapped Medivac program backed by Labor and the Greens, was $510m.

The Medivac cohort, which includes 95 who have received medical treatment, 68 refusing medical care and 45 found not to be refugees, is being put up in hotels in Melbourne and Brisbane. Protests at the Kangaroo Point hotel in Brisbane cost taxpayers $270,000 per week to support additional ­security and staffing, transport for staff and temporary fencing.

Mr Tudge said the government had opposed the “failed” Medivac legislation because “we suspected it was a backdoor way for people to come to Australia”.

“A third of the men brought in under the Medivac legislation have refused medical treatment, despite them being brought to Australia for that express purpose. Labor now wants them to be part of the broader community,” Mr Tudge told The Australian.

He said the government, which has cut the number of people in detention by 85 per cent and closed 19 detention centres, was committed to deporting detainees with criminal backgrounds.

“Whereas there were thousands of women and children in detention centres when we first came to office, now 70 per cent are detainees who are being deported because of their criminal background,” he said.

The immigration detention system has been strained by the COVID-19 restrictions.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton last week confirmed 250 criminals in mainland detention centres would be sent to the high security facility on Christmas Island before the end of the month.

“It’ll give us the ability to create some space,” he said. “We’ve got people who need to be deported, but we can’t because of COVID.”