‘Worse than Trump’: Multicultural leaders shocked by immigration proposals

Baffled, blindsided and distressed. That’s how Ali Elliin says members of the Iranian-Australian community feel about the Albanese government’s proposed immigration changes that could ban their extended family members and friends from entering the country.

Under the changes, the immigration minister could prevent foreigners from particular countries from entering Australia, even as tourists, if their home country refuses to accept the return of failed asylum seekers. Iran, Iraq, Russia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe are the countries most likely to be targeted as “removal concern countries”.

Ali Elliin and his wife Sohila at their home in Sydney. Credit: James Brickwood

“We didn’t expect the Australian government to do anything like this,” said Elliin, director of the Aknoon Cultural Centre, which provides social and cultural services for Sydney’s Iranian diaspora.

“It’s worse than anything Obama did, anything Trump did.”

Elliin, who was born in Iran and moved to Australia with wife Sohila, said the government’s proposals were tougher than former president Donald Trump’s controversial 2017 executive order that banned citizens from Muslim-majority countries – including Iran, Syria, Libya and Somalia – from entering the United States for 90 days.

The government revealed the dramatic proposals on Tuesday afternoon and attempted to ram them through parliament by Wednesday night, shocking diaspora communities who could be swept up by the sweeping provisions. The timeframe was so short that the Coalition and the Greens united to slow the process down by referring the legislation to a Senate committee that will not report until May 7.

Elliin said his phone had been running hot with calls from confused community members seeking guidance on how the laws would work, and whether their relatives could be banned from entering the country.

“We are worried for the mental health of the community,” he said. “They are stressed, worried, talking to each other to work out what is going on.”

Elliin said there was a grim irony in the fact that the Iranian-Australian community had been lobbying the government to make it harder for officials and their relatives from the repressive regime in Tehran to travel to Australia. Instead, the government was now threatening to block innocent Iranian citizens, many of whom loathe the regime, from entering the country.

“Morally, this is wrong,” he said. “We are embarrassed and shocked.”

The Australian Iranian Community Alliance said in an open letter on Wednesday: “We are standing at a pivotal moment in our nation’s history, where the principles of compassion, justice, and human dignity are being tested ... We urge the government to repeal this proposed bill and seek a more humane and considered approach to immigration that respects the rights and aspirations of asylum seekers and refugees.”

The government has said that people from “removal concern countries” who are close relatives of Australian citizens or permanent residents would still be able to apply for visas, as would dual nationals.

Ambrose Mareng, a leader of Melbourne’s South Sudanese community, said members of his diaspora were also shocked and offended by the legislation.

“This will affect the whole community,” said Mareng, who arrived in Australia on a humanitarian visa in 2005. “We have been trying to build ties between our two countries and this will damage that.”

Ambrose Merang says the South Sudanese community in Australia would be damaged by the new laws.Credit: Eddie Jim

Mareng said he was alarmed by the notion the government would try to make it harder for people from South Sudan – one of the poorest countries in the world – to seek safety and economic security in Australia.

Sahar Khajani, a leader in Adelaide’s Iranian diaspora community, said she had lived in Australia for a decade and received citizenship, but now felt like a foreigner.

“I feel like I don’t belong,” Khajani said. “It just reminds me of Trump’s policy some years ago banning people from entering America.”

Kaveh Akbari, an advocate for the Iranian community in Wollongong, said he was dismayed that a centre-left Labor government would seek to implement such hardline immigration measures.

“When you get a government like Labor in, and you wholeheartedly believe they are going to take a more humane approach, then when you get hit by something like this, you have close to 100,000 Iranians in Australia feeling completely isolated and disheartened,” he said.

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