The invisible people

Well-known fact: Australia is a sought-after destination for students, travellers and skilled migrants from India. Little-known fact: Indians also come here to seek asylum.

Last year, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said, based on data received from the Australian government, that 51 asylum seekers from India in Australia were refugees. Many of them are waiting to be resettled; others have been waiting—some for six years or more—for their asylum claims to be processed by Australia’s offshore immigration facilities in the Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru.

Nisar Ahmad Haji of Jammu and Kashmir, who was declared a refugee in October 2015, is still at the Nibok Refugee Settlement in Nauru, waiting to be resettled. “I was 25 years old [in 2009] and was helping my father run our small general store in a village near Srinagar,” he told THE WEEK. “There was growing unrest in the valley. Someone told my father about jobs in Malaysia. He wanted to give me the best opportunity in life, so my parents sacrificed everything to buy a flight ticket to send me to Malaysia in December 2009.”

Nisar worked in Malaysia for two years, before “some people” talked him into going to Australia. For a few thousand dollars, they put him on a boat to Indonesia, from where he boarded another boat that took him to Christmas Island, an Australian territory south of Java. Like hundreds of other asylum seekers, Nisar had to endure rough seas, squalor, disease and hunger on a rickety boat for three weeks.

“Growing up in the Himalayas, I had never seen the sea,” said Nisar. “I was terrified and became very sick. After a few days on Christmas Island, the Australian government sent us to Nauru, where I have been for the past seven years. During this time, I lost both my parents and three uncles. They had hoped that if I had a good career, I would be able to help my younger sister and brother, who are still in Kashmir. I have not been able to talk to them since the lockdown following the abrogation of Article 370 [on August 5].”

His family had been upset because they thought he was living the good life in Australia and was not supporting them. Many asylum seekers THE WEEK spoke to said they all hid their troubles from their loved ones to not make them anxious. “We survive on the fortnightly allowance provided by the Australian government,” said Nisar, who married a Nauruan nurse. “We have no study or work rights. The people, culture and climate in Nauru are completely different from Kashmir. I long for noon chai, Kashmiri wazwan and the abundance of fresh fruits. Here, I can’t afford to buy even a slice of watermelon.”

He said his wife could not get a job because many Nauruans do not like refugees. “A few months ago, a local man punched me, breaking my arm and nose,” he said.

According to the Refugee Council of Australia, there were about a dozen men from India in Australia’s offshore immigration facilities in Papua New Guinea and Nauru as of September 2018. An asylum seeker is defined as someone who is seeking international protection, but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined.

Said Ram Singh (name changed), an asylum seeker from Punjab: “I was 24 and working on a farm in Punjab when an ‘agent’ promised me a better life. For about Rs10 lakh, the agent sent me by flight to Indonesia and then another agent put me on a boat to Australia.”

Most asylum seekers reach Australia via Indonesia. “I was one of 150 people who, in July 2013, reached Christmas Island,” said Ram. “I was then transferred to an immigration detention centre on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. I have spent over six years in detention, wasting the best years of my youth. I am willing to settle in any country that would accept me. I want freedom from this misery.”

Asylum seekers like Ram say they do not want to be identified by journalists because their claims are under process. Said a refugee who said he was from rural Uttar Pradesh: “I used to watch cricket and I had seen beautiful videos of Australia. I was 19 when I met someone on Facebook who said he could send me to Australia. My father raised funds to pay this ‘someone’, who arranged my flight to Indonesia and then put me on a tiny, overcrowded fishing boat. I was terrified as it frequently rained and there was little food or drinking water. We didn’t think we would make it to Christmas Island. It was December 2013. From [Christmas Island], we were sent to Manus Island… I have spent the past six miserable years in detention.”

Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Sydney-based rights organisation Refugee Action Coalition, said most refugees from south Asia were seeking asylum on the grounds of political persecution. “For those from India, it can be conflicts with criminal gangs, which put their lives at risk, or religious or ethnic reasons,” he said.

All detainees want freedom, but they do not want to return to India. In June this year, Ravinder Singh of Punjab, who had arrived by boat in 2013, set himself alight in his room at Hillside Compound, one of the three immigration facilities on Manus Island. Ravinder survived, but his face and hands were severely burnt.

Psychological issues are widespread among refugees, say activists. “We have had over 120 cases of self-harm and attempted suicide since May this year,” said Rintoul. “There was a desperate situation in these detention centres.”

It prompted the authorities to move the refugees to hotels in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, in August. “[The hotels] are strictly guarded and have visitor restrictions and strict limits on the time the refugees are allowed out,” said Rintoul. “This is a hasty attempt by Australia and PNG immigration to [project the closure of] detention centres. But the refugees are not free—53 men have been held incommunicado in the high-security detention centre next to Bomana prison in Port Moresby. We still have 288 people on Nauru and 306 in PNG.”

Anxious and fearful, many asylum seekers rarely go out of their hotel rooms. Thrice a day, they queue up to get their quota of food, which they take to their rooms and eat. Every room has a television set, but no reception. There is no access to books. Port Moresby has a high crime rate, so the refugees rarely venture out. Almost all of them have cellphones, and use WhatsApp to stay in touch with family and friends.

Australia, a nation of migrants, has stringent rules against illegal immigration. Under Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders, a military-led border security initiative started in 2013, anyone arriving on a boat without adequate documentation is put in indefinite detention in Nauru or Papua New Guinea.

“In August and September 2012, Australia concluded agreements with PNG and Nauru establishing joint processing arrangements, whereby some asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat were sent to those countries to be processed and wait for an indeterminate duration before being settled back in Australia or elsewhere,” said Madeline Gleeson, senior research associate at the University of New South Wales’ Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. “In 2013, these arrangements were superseded with the signing of new agreements, according to which all asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat without visas were to be sent offshore, and processed there under joint arrangements, but none would be permitted to settle back in Australia, even if found to be refugees.”

According to Gleeson, the arrangements made provisions for refugees to settle in the two island nations. “Since 2014, few new arrivals have been sent offshore under these arrangements,” she said. “Instead, in the past five years, boats carrying asylum seekers have been intercepted and turned around at sea, under Operation Sovereign Borders.”

Under Australian law, a person can be indefinitely detained until he is granted a valid visa or he chooses to leave the country or Australia finds another country to which he can go. Rights activists say this policy of mandatory detention violates the commitments made by Australia in the UNHCR’s 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

“The Australian government had been spending a billion dollars a year since 2013 to unlawfully detain hundreds of people in these centres,” said Rintoul. “More than 90 per cent of them have already been processed as refugees and should be immediately resettled.”

Shamindan Kanapathi, who was 21 when he left Sri Lanka because of the persecution of Tamils, has been recognised as a refugee. “There is an all-pervading sense of desperation and hopelessness,” he said. “We had been living in indefinite detention since 2013 with no rights to study or work. We have now been moved to a hotel in Port Moresby, but my future still hangs in the balance.”

According to the July 2019 report of the Australian Border Force, there are 1,342 people held in immigration detention facilities in Australia; 58 of them are from India. According to the UNHCR, as many as 2,342 protection visa and review applications by Indian asylum seekers are pending in Australia. Another 1,920 protection visa and merit review applications were filed in 2018. The Indian High Commission in Australia said they had not received any request from Australian authorities regarding asylum-seekers from India.

“Those who are found to be eligible for protection are not granted permanent protection. They live with constant threat of detention, and having to renew temporary protection visas, which interfere with their ability to find secure work and study. The process forces people to depend on charity or exploitative work to survive. Entire families face extreme poverty and homelessness,” said a spokesperson for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, an organisation that supports refugees in Australia.

Habiburahman is a Rohingya who was forced to leave his home in Myanmar’s Rakhine State because of sectarian violence. He arrived in Australia by boat in 2009, and spent time at several immigration detention centres before his refugee status was cleared. The process took 32 months. He is now waiting for a permanent protection visa.

“All protection visa applications are assessed against the relevant framework in Australia’s migration legislation,” said a spokesperson for Australia’s department of home affairs. “Protection claims are assessed individually, by taking into consideration the particular circumstances of the applicant and the conditions in the country from which the applicant seeks protection.”

People who flew in to Australia on a valid visa can apply for asylum here. In 2017-2018, as many as 27,931 people who came by plane applied for asylum. But only 1,425 applications were granted. In the past five years, Indian and Pakistani refugees constituted a major share of the asylum-seeking population in Australia.

Abdul Razzaq, who hails from Mansehra in Pakistan’s Hazara region, came to Australia as a student in 2010, accompanied by his wife. “After my father passed away, my life came under threat [in Pakistan],” he said. “So we applied for a temporary protection visa in 2013.”

Razzaq and his wife are currently on ‘bridging visa E’—or BVE, which enables them to remain lawfully in Australia while their immigration status is resolved. According to a June 2019 report of the Australian department of home affairs, there were 56 Indian BVE holders in Australia. “The BVE doesn’t give us the right to work, study, travel overseas or access Medicare (the government-funded health care scheme),” said Razzaq. “We suffered from depression and my wife has several chronic health problems. We live in constant fear, stress and anxiety. What if we are asked to return to Pakistan?”

NO SAFE PASSAGE

On September 26, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement released Ajay Kumar, a 33-year-old from Haryana, from a detention centre in El Paso, Texas. Four days later, they released Gurjant Singh, his friend and fellow Indian detainee.

The duo had been in detention for a year, even though they had not been charged with a crime. ICE officials said they had entered the country illegally, and that their asylum applications were rejected by a judge. Kumar and Singh had appealed the decision, and they wanted ICE to release them while their appeals were being heard.

Demanding freedom, they went on a 70-day hunger strike. ICE officials tried to force-feed them several times, but apparently failed. The officials finally agreed to release them on September 21.

On September 30, Kumar and Singh stood outside the detention centre, their hands folded in greeting as journalists asked them about their ordeal. Both the men had lost nearly 20 kilos each, but had not lost hope that the US government would grant them asylum. “I have been waiting a long time for this—to be free,” said Kumar. “I would rather starve to death in custody than be deported back to India.”

The duo says they faced death threats because of their affiliation to political parties that are in the opposition in India. Said Singh’s attorney Jessica Miles: “He came to the US seeking asylum and we have failed him every step of the way. He was denied a bond by an immigration judge known for bond denials. He was then denied asylum by the same judge. Now he seeks justice at the 10th circuit court of appeals, which I hope he will finally receive.”

The US Border Patrol has apprehended more than eight lakh undocumented migrants this year. Nearly 9,000 Indians were reportedly apprehended while trying to cross the US’s southwest border in 2018—up from just 77 in 2008. The number of Indian asylum-seekers in North America has also gone up—nearly 34,000 Indians applied for asylum in the US and Canada last year.