Should Australia do more to help refugees by accepting more of them by ‘narrowing down’ the selectiv

Australia took in 6000 refugees for resettlement between 2015-2016 making us third in the most refugees taken for resettlement worldwide, just behind Canada and America!But is Australia doing...

Should Australia do more to help refugees by accepting more of them by ‘narrowing down’ the selective criteria?

By Sachi Ruaya

Australia took in 6000 refugees for resettlement between 2015-2016 making us third in the most refugees taken for resettlement worldwide, just behind Canada and America! (www.aph.gov.au )But is Australia doing enough for refugees? As a country, we are doing our best to help refugees into resettlement and doing just enough work for them whilst protecting our residents who have already settled in Australia. Doing more to help refugees can leave Australia more prone to doing too much or them leaving us with security risks and reputation loss. But, is this even possible?

 

Number one on the charts is that not every refugee will be eligible for resettlement because they may not fulfil any of UNHCR’s (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) criteria, which is separated into seven categories; Legal and/or Physical Protection Needs, Survivors of Torture and/or Violence, Medical Needs, Women and Girls at Risk, Family Reunification, Children and Adolescents at Risk and Lack of Foreseeable Alternative Durable Solutions. It is highly likely, if Australia were to ‘widen the range of refugees’, they will need to narrow down the criteria used to select them. If Australia decides to do this, it will leave a mark on Australia’s image and reputation as a partitioner of the United Nations since we disobeyed the agreed criteria for selecting refugees.

 

Furthermore, by not selecting refugees from UNHCR’s criteria can leave Australia with many more security risks! For instance, it will make Australia more vulnerable to resettling “fake refugees” or even a potential terrorist! A recent official report (March 23, 2017) from Simon Benson, a National Political Editor, says that in the past year, a certain 500 refugees sought for Australia for resettlement. [Take note that these refugees bound under the humanitarian program and that UNHCR’S criteria take part in Australia’s humanitarian program’s security check.] And you know what? All of them we declined entry because of the Five Eyes intelligence network [“The Five Eyes intelligence network is a security arrangement between Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.”-Simon Benson] alerted that their names were on an international security watch list. For instance, around 30 of them turned up on ASIO’s (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) ­ national security terrorism watch list! But, what will happen if we had more refugees not chosen by the criteria with the security at risk? Now we know we are done for! We will be letting people who might not even be a forced immigrant or refugee in!

 

Refugees that were resettled in Australia made major contributions since 1945 (i.e. World War 2 and when the Department of Immigration was established in Australia) but it is not worth the security and safety of our residents and citizens do not follow the criteria!

 

Ultimately, by narrowing down the selective criteria for refugees, we technically cannot take more refugees! All it will do is haste the process of getting a refugee resettled in Australia. If we do this, it will only show how impatient we Australians are, even if we do not intend to! Relating to the question; “Should Australia do more to help refugees by accepting more of them by narrowing the selective criteria?” This is not even possible! Again, we will only lessen the security and haste the resettlement process. Leaving Australia with more weak spots on our borders!

 

Doing enough? Perfect amount! Australia must not take in more refugees by narrowing down the criteria because doing so will leave a scar on the country’s image, leave serious security and safety risk for both the government and people and is not even possible! Australia needs to find another way to do more to help refugees other than this so-called method!