Vietnamese national facing deportation on the run from immigration officials

A 25-year-old Vietnamese national convicted for cultivating a large quantity of cannabis has escaped immigration detention.

A 25-year-old Vietnamese national due to be deported remains on the run from immigration authorities. Picture: Michael Franchi

A 25-year-old Vietnamese national who was facing deportation after being convicted for cultivating a large commercial quantity of cannabis has escaped immigration detention in Adelaide and remains at large.

The man, whose name has not been released, was recorded on CCTV using a mobile phone and smoking near the perimeter fence of Adelaide Immigration Transit Accommodation, before he jumped the fence and made his escape on Tuesday evening.

The jailbreak comes as Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton pushes for laws which would see mobile phones confiscated from immigration detainees, and after the Federal Court last week found that an Australian Border Force prohibition the devices was unlawful.

An ABF spokeswoman confirmed the detainee had escaped.

“The ABF are working with South Australian Police to locate the man,” she said.

The Australian understands the man arrived in Australia in July 2013 on a student visa, which was cancelled in February 2017 when he was found not to be studying.

In March 2018 he was arrested and charged with the cannabis offences, before being convicted earlier this month in the Adelaide Magistrates’ Court.

As a result of his conviction and visa breaches he was facing imminent deportation to Vietnam.

The man is understood to have been part of a larger group of Vietnamese citizens involved in cannabis production in Adelaide and was believed to have had connections with organised crime groups. He was assessed by immigration officials as being high risk.

Last week Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram highlighted the potential for mobile phones to be used to organise criminal activities, as Mr Dutton pushes for Labor and crossbenchers to support the Migration Amendment (Prohibiting Items in Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill, which would see immigration detainees banned from having mobile phones and boost search and seizure powers to crack down on contraband such as drugs and child pornography.

Mr Dutton said immigration detention centres contained large numbers of high risk detainees with criminal convictions, and the bill was intended to prevent escapes and make detention centres safer.

Peter Dutton. Picture: Gary Ramage

“It is beyond belief that (Labor) don’t accept that there’s a problem there, that what we’re trying to do actually provides for a safer work environment for the guards and it says to people we aren’t running immigration detention centres for fun, we’re not going to have criminals running the place and we’ve got Labor and the Greens, again, voting against it, which I just think is a really bad outcome,” he said.

Departmental statistics requested by Labor immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann showed that between November 2014 and October 2017, 36 individuals escaped immigration facilities in 32 incidents, while 56 individuals unsuccessfully attempted to escape in 47 incidents.

According to the department, only two of these escapes were made with the assistance of mobile phones.

“The out-of-touch Turnbull government doesn’t like talking about their failure to manage Australia’s onshore immigration detention centres,” Mr Neumann said.

“Peter Dutton has serious questions to answer about how over 30 people have escaped from immigration detention centres on his watch.

“If Dutton can’t stop people jumping over a fence, how can he be trusted with unprecedented powers over Australia’s domestic security agencies?”