Migrants and refugees who commit crimes are facing an unfair legal system where they end up being detained or deported after completing their sentences in jail.
The Prison to Deportation Pipeline report found that visa cancellations on character grounds increased tenfold since 2014 leading to a significant spike in the number of people held in immigration detention.
The latest government figures show there are 984 people in detention centres, with 824 of them having a criminal history.
The average time detainees spent in detention was 513 days (or about a year and four months).
Researchers from the Human Rights Law Centre and the University of Melbourne found that non-citizens have a “structurally different, more restrictive experience in prison” compared with Australian citizens.
While Australian citizens are freed after serving their sentences in the community, people who are subject to visa cancellation are “pipelined” from jail to being held in immigration detention centres.
“People on visas face a two-track prison system, where they cannot access programs, parole and post-release support available to others, simply because of their visa status,” Sanmati Verma, legal director at the centre, said.
“People on visas are effectively being doubly or triply punished.”
Visa holders subject to mandatory cancellations have only 28 days for that decision to be overturned.
“This system sets up visa-holders to fail and to lose hope from the moment they are sentenced. It must be dismantled,” Verma said.
Government policy and High Court rulings
In a landmark ruling by the High Court last year, .
This triggered the release of over 200 detainees, whose offences ranged from low-level to more serious crimes, such as murder, into the community.
They remained under strict conditions including wearing an ankle monitor daily and a curfew between 10pm to 6am.
This month, the High Court in a majority ruling found these measures were punitive.
In response, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke introduced legislation to reinstate electronic ankle bracelets, curfews, and the power to remove people who have had visas cancelled in third countries.
“The first priority is not ankle bracelets or detention for these people, our first priority is that we don’t want them in Australia at all,” the minister said in parliament.
“That is why we introduced powers … to improve the government’s capacity to remove people from this country in this situation.”
The report argued that visa cancellation powers do not offer a restorative path for offenders after jail, either by exporting the problem to other countries or detaining them further.
They recommended repealing mandatory visa cancellation provisions and reviewing standards relating to prison placement, programs, education and parole for non-citizens.
