‘Very weak claims’: International students flood asylum system as deportation backlog nears 100,000
International students are flooding the asylum system with bogus refugee applications, as the country’s deportation backlog surges towards 100,000.
International students are overwhelming Australia’s asylum system with bogus refugee applications, as the country’s deportation backlog surges towards 100,000.
As of July 31, there were 98,979 people whose protection visa application had been denied but were yet to be deported while 27,100 were awaiting a decision, according to the Department of Home Affairs.
“Undoubtedly the case is that there’s an increasing number of student visa holders applying for asylum,” said Dr Abul Rizvi, former deputy secretary of the Immigration Department, who has warned the government must urgently take steps to clear the deportation backlog that has steadily grown since 2015.
“We want to at least stabilise it, otherwise you end up with a massive underclass and it impacts social cohesion, and eventually you get some strongman leader like Trump saying, ‘I’m going to fix it.’”
The 98,979 figure includes those deemed unlawful non-citizens and those on a bridging visa, with some still appealing their visa refusal through the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), and a much smaller number seeking final adjudication through the federal courts.
Dr Rizvi estimates that based on the current ART backlog of refugee applications, there are around 50,000 people who have exhausted all their appeal avenues and remain in the country unlawfully.
Delays in processing mean many are left waiting years for a decision on their initial protection visa application.
As of the most recent available numbers from the ART, at the end of May the tribunal had a backlog of 42,905 — suggesting the number of unlawful non-citizens in the country who have exhausted all of their appeals stood at around 51,000.
Last financial year, there were 23,576 total protection visa lodgements, 4036 approvals and 24,924 refusals.
Between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025, deportations of failed asylum seekers averaged at around a dozen a month, for a total of 162.
A news.com.au analysis of Home Affairs data shows India and China — Australia’s two top sources of international students — flooded the system with applications as thousands more were overwhelmingly rejected.
Indian nationals made 2596 applications for onshore protection visas, while in the same period 5633 existing claims were rejected — accounting for more than one in five of all refusals.
Between 42 and 60 Indians were granted asylum, or 1-1.5 per cent of all approvals.
Chinese nationals made 2494 applications and 3538 were refused in that period. Around 290 were granted asylum, or about 7 per cent of the total.
Most of those granted asylum were from countries including war-torn Myanmar, Malaysia — where LGBT people face persecution — and Iran.
“Prior to Covid it was predominantly people who had entered on visitor visas,” said Dr Rizvi.
“There still are a lot applying from visitor visas, but an increasing portion are students and PALM visa holders.”
Home Affairs data show a growing number of onshore refugee applications from Pacific nations including Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga, which make up the bulk of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.
Fijians made a total of 1138 asylum claims last year, while around 70 were granted protection.
As of July there were 30,475 PALM scheme workers in the country, according to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR).
Similarly, the second half of 2023 saw a massive surge in asylum claims from Vietnamese nationals, associated with the Ag Visa agreement struck by former Agriculture Minister David Littleproud.
“Labor closed the visa except there was an MOU with Vietnam already signed and they couldn’t get out of it, so they let in 1000 to 2000 Ag Visa holders,” said Dr Rizvi.
“Inevitably the bulk of them ended up applying for asylum, like night follows day.”
2023 also saw a sharp rise in Colombian students applying for asylum.
“The Colombian ELICOS (English-language course) sector went berserk for a while,” he said.
Dr Rizvi said the growing number of unlawful non-citizens had simply been swept under the rug by successive governments because the cost of deporting them “would be eye-watering”.
He estimated it would cost easily in the “tens of thousands” per person.
“Many ministers have asked that question, and the response they’re given is, ‘Yes, Minister, we can do that but you’re going to have to find us a huge amount of money.’ Most likely in the hundreds of millions, if not more,” he said.
“You’re going to have to build huge numbers of detention centres, then there’s going to be a huge amount of legal costs as these people appeal their deportation decisions. Many of them will be difficult to deport even after that.
“Most governments, when confronted with those facts, have just said, ‘Let’s let it go through to the keeper.’”
Dr Rizvi pointed out that even US President Donald Trump, with $US170 billion ($260 billion) in additional funding for immigration enforcement, was struggling to deport significant numbers.
“You can increase deportations at the margins, particularly cohorts … (whose) asylum claims are so weak that the legal case they can run will not last long,” he said.
“But you can only do that to people who’ve recently been refused. If they’ve been here years and years, even if their asylum claim is weak removing them is hard, like the Biloela family.”
The best solution, he argued, was for Home Affairs to reverse processing asylum claims from newest to oldest.
“Process the newest first with a focus on where the case is really weak,” he said.
Dr Rizvi also called for a crackdown on migration agents.
“Target the agents that are organising (these claims),” he said.
“Most of these people have very little English. Filling out an asylum application requires a high level of English. They will be getting help. The government has got to target the people who are helping them, particularly those who are organising very weak claims.”
In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs said the Australian government “is committed to ensuring the protection visa system serves its intended purpose — to provide protection to those who are found meet Australia’s protection obligations”.
“On October 5, 2023, the Australian government announced measures to remove incentives for non-genuine applicants to apply for protection and reduce the number of on-hand protection visa applications,” a spokeswoman said.
“These reforms are designed to break the business model of people exploiting visa processing delays to extend their stay in Australia, by ensuring visa applications are decided much more quickly.
“As a result, protection visa primary decisions are now at an all-time high and consistently outstripping lodgements.
“While the government is committed to deciding new protection visa applications quickly, it will also ensure lawful, reasonable and fair decision making.
“The government is committed to upholding Australia’s international obligations and making lawful visa decisions. It will ensure each application continues to be assessed on its individual merits by a departmental decision maker and that legal assistance is readily available for protection visa applicants.”
Salvatore Babones, Associate Professor Sociology and Criminology at the University of Sydney and author of the 2021 book Australia’s Universities: Can They Reform?, has long been a vocal critic of the international student sector.
Prof Babones told news.com.au last month there was an “emerging phenomenon” of increasing dropout rates as international students “recognise you can get in on a university visa and switch”.
“This is the new scam,” he said.
“We have many universities, mostly regional, that have dropout rates of (more than) 50 per cent after the first year.”
The most recent figures from the Education Department for 2022 showed Central Queensland University had an attrition rate of 67 per cent within the first year, while Victoria’s Federation University had a 48 per cent attrition rate.
Earlier this year, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) revealed nearly half its foreign students — 46 per cent — dropped out in their first year.
“That makes it very clear that international students are not applying to these universities for the purpose of studying in Australia, they’re applying for the purpose of getting into the country, after which they can apply for a different visa,” Prof Babones said.
“They can easily get a bridging visa and then get a visa to study at a cooking school or a language school, and then you can stay in Australia almost indefinitely.”
Griffith University, where more than one in four international students dropped out last year, told The Australian in April that the low retention rates for cohorts from Kenya, Pakistan and parts of India reflected “the evolving international student landscape and the flexibility students have under current regulations, which sees visa holders able to transfer to other institutions after six months study”.
A 2023 report from the Australian government’s Centre for Population revealed fewer than half of international students had left the country a decade after arriving.
Of the 103,000 student arrivals in 2006-07, only 44 per cent had completed their studies and returned offshore by 2016-17, while 39 per cent gained permanent residency and another 17 per cent remained in the country on various temporary visas.
Prof Babones said Australia’s annual permanent migration intake, currently set at 185,000 places, was “large but not extreme”, although it’s among the highest in the world on a per capita basis.
“The real problem is the succession of temporary visas, which has created a class of guest workers in Australia,” he said.
The Albanese government last month announced it was increasing the 2026 national planning level by 25,000 to 295,000 international student places in order to provide “stability and certainty for the international education sector”, with a focus on increasing numbers from Southeast Asia.
Originally published as ‘Very weak claims’: International students flood asylum system as deportation backlog nears 100,000
ASX swings as economic news spooks investors
