They waited 17 months for the border to reopen. Now they’re giving up and going home

21 August 2021 — Sydney Morning herald

Tens of thousands of immigrants are calling time on Australia and heading back overseas because of the prolonged border closure and uncertainty over when they will see their loved ones again.

Department of Home Affairs figures show that between July 2020 and May this year, 34,200 residents left Australia with the intention to be away for more than a year.

That included 20,933 Australian citizens (including dual nationals) and 13,267 non-citizen residents (including permanent residents and long-term visa holders). The trend is growing, with long-term resident departures averaging 3500 a month so far this year, compared with 2780 a month last year.

Social researcher Mark McCrindle said Sydney and Melbourne were global cities filled with educated professionals from around the world who were used to being able to fly in and out. “Until we open up again, these global professionals are finding Australia is not compatible with their particular lives,” he said.

About 30 per cent of Australian residents were born overseas and 50 per cent have at least one parent who was born overseas.

The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age have heard from dozens of foreign expats, mostly from Europe and the United States, who have decided to return to those countries to be closer to family. Among them is Katy Stephenson, who recently featured in a story about a surge in applications for travel exemptions, having been refused permission for either her mother to visit or to visit her mother after complications from a difficult birth.

Many others say they would “move in a heartbeat” but feel “stuck” because they married an Australian and have children here.

German-Australian woman Daniella May has captured the sentiments of many in a protest song based on a Sarah Blasko song that is picking up steam on YouTube and Instagram.

Measures to fight the pandemic include a travel ban that prevents Australian citizens and permanent residents from leaving the country and foreign nationals from entering, unless they obtain a travel exemption from Australian Border Force.

Immediate family members of Australian citizens and permanent residents do not require an exemption to enter Australia, but unlike many other countries the definition of “immediate family” does not include the relationship between parents and adult offspring.

Meanwhile, many people are separated from partners too. While the definition includes a spouse or de facto partner, many relationships that were new when the pandemic started, including people holding prospective marriage visas, don’t meet the criteria.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently announced a four-phase plan to reopen the country based on vaccination targets, including reopening the international border and ending the use of lockdowns.

This was the last straw for US-born Marissa Parkin because it confirmed for her that there was “no end in sight”.

“If you read between the lines of this four-phase plan, the language is ‘it may include this, it may include that’; none if it is ironclad and none of it is guaranteed,” said Ms Parkin, from Thornleigh in northern Sydney. “Free movement has always been what makes living here work for us.”

Ms Parkin and her British husband Ian Stephen have lived in Australia for nearly eight years and their daughter was born here. They became citizens in May 2019 and planned to stay here forever. Instead, they have sold their house and in two weeks will move to Britain.

Mr Stephen, a university academic, is taking a huge pay cut for a role in the UK while Ms Parkin has been able to transfer her marketing job.

“It’s getting very close and it’s definitely the case that the closer we get, the sadder I am, but I don’t think either one of us has had a single moment where we’ve regretted our decision,” Ms Parkin said. “Based on the information that we have, we’ve made the best decision for our family.”

Ms Parkin said the “real kicker” in Mr Morrison’s plan was it only discussed allowing Australians to travel overseas and travel bubbles with low-risk countries, and didn’t give any real timeline for allowing foreign visitors in. While she and her husband and their two-year-old daughter could make a short overseas trip once a year, their parents are retired and have the time and money to come here more often and for longer periods of time.

Ms Parkin said the “brain drain is coming” for Australia. She knows several other friends in highly skilled jobs who are also leaving, including one set of friends who became citizens this week and will leave Australia permanently in three weeks’ time.

Lisa and Diarmaid Connolly are another couple who had planned to live in Australia permanently but are now leaving, with flights booked for late September.

They have sold their house in Oyster Bay in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire - which they thought would be their “forever home” - and are returning to Ireland with their children Alex, 4, and Izzy, 8 months. If the lockdown is extended they may have to leave without saying goodbye to friends and family in Australia.

www.samigration.com

Germany Facilitates Entry Rules From Several Third-Countries, Including South Africa

Schengen visa info  - 22 August 2021

The German federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention Robert Koch Institute has removed several third countries from the list of virus variant areas, which has prompted the German authorities to facilitate entry restrictions for arrivals from these countries.

At the same time, the institute has announced that from August and on, there will be only two types of risk areas: high-risk areas (previously high-incidence areas) and virus variant areas, while the simple risk area category will no longer exist.

Since Sunday, August 1, 2021, at 12:00 am, Germany has removed nine third countries from the virus variant area category and placed them in the category of the high-risk areas, including here South Africa, which has been in place since the beginning of 2021. These countries are

1. Botswana
2. Eswatini
3. Lesotho
4. Malawi
5. Mozambique
6. Namibia
7. Zambia
8. Zimbabwe
9. South Africa

The change of categories for these countries means that visa holders from these areas will finally be eligible to travel to Germany, including here work and student visa holders.

Last weekend, SchengenVisaInfo.com reported that the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs imposed a requirement of negative COVID-19 test results for travellers who have not been vaccinated yet, and those that haven’t previously been infected with COVID-19, including arrivals from areas in the safe list.

The requirement will also apply to arrivals from the countries listed above, who now are obliged to present proof that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, they have recently recovered from the virus or proof of negative test results.

“When entering the Federal Republic of Germany after a stay in a foreign high-risk area (previously high-incidence area) or virus variant area, special registration, verification and quarantine obligations must be observed,” the RKI explains.

According to RKI’s most recent update, no new virus variant areas have been detected since the previous update. Currently, in this category remain only Brazil and Uruguay.

At the same time, Andorra has been moved from the category of simple risk areas to the high-risk list. The Dominican Republic, on the other hand, is no longer a risk area.

Germany is among the EU countries with the highest vaccination rates, with 72.9 per cent of its population having received at least the first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19, while 59.1 per cent of them are fully vaccinated, data by European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reveals.

Yet, according to the World Health Organization, Germany has reported 2,454 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours and 30 deaths, which has brought the number of COVID-19 infections in the country to 3,766,65 since the beginning of the pandemic. The country now counts 91,637 deaths due to the virus.

www.samigration.com

Constitutional Court protects rights of detained immigrants

The Citizen – 18 August 2021

This despite the fact that it will now become very expensive to process the arrests of undocumented migrants.

Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) has welcomed a unanimous Constitutional Court ruling upholding the rights of all detainees – also alleged illegal immigrants – to access our courts.

The Constitutional Court ruled that sections 34(1)(b) and (d) of the Immigration Act were inconsistent with the constitution and therefore invalid and gave parliament 24 months to issue new legislation to correct the defects in the act.

Although the ruling of invalidity was suspended, the court ruled that pending the enactment of amended legislation, any undocumented foreigner detained under section 34 of the act must be brought before court in person within 48 hours from the time of arrest or not later than the first court day thereafter if the 48 hours fall outside ordinary court days.

This also counts for foreigners currently already in detention.

The court ruled that the rights guaranteed in section 12 and 35 of the constitution – the right to challenge in court a detention within 48 hours of arrest and the right to be protected against arbitrary detention without trial – applied to foreign nations as well as South African citizens.

LHR said in a statement the ruling affirmed that all persons living in South Africa were protected by the law and not subject to arbitrary violations of their rights by authorities.

“This ruling will most importantly protect vulnerable individuals whose detention have in the past fallen beyond the reach of judicial oversight, resulting in widespread rights violations,” the rights group said.

LHR thanked Legal Aid South Africa, without whose financial support they would not have been able to wage a successful battle against state injustice, as well as People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (Passop), which intervened in the application as a friend of the court.

LHR took the matter to the Constitutional Court for confirmation after the High Court in Pretoria ruled that the sections of the act were invalid, but Home Affairs appealed the ruling, arguing that the sections were consistent with the constitution and denying that arrested foreigners enjoyed the same protection under the constitution.

The Constitutional Court dismissed the state’s appeal and upheld the LHR’s argument that the legislation illegally authorised administrative detention without trial for purposes of deportation in violation of the constitution.

The organisation had instituted 115 cases against home affairs since 2009 and provided free legal assistance to arrested and detained foreigners who were in some instances detained without trial for periods of up to six months or longer.

Judge Chris Jafta said the LHR’s papers painted an unfortunate picture of widespread disregard for statutory requirements, which led to a violation of the rights of vulnerable people.

These lapses revealed shortcomings enacted by the Immigration Act in a system that was supposedly designed to promote dignity and human rights.

The state argued that it would increase costs as about 500 foreigners would have to appear in court daily countrywide, which would require a massive number of magistrates, but Judge Jafta said the mere increase in costs alone could not justify denying detainees the right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

He said an increase in costs would be unavoidable if each foreigner decided to exercise their right to challenge the decision to deport them, but the state should have budgeted for these costs, which are necessitated by the implementation of the act.

The court found that the reasons advanced by the state fell woefully short of justifying the limitation created by the impugned provisions of the act.

Judge Jafta stressed that arrest and detention without trial had been commonly used to suppress opposition to laws and policies of the former apartheid government, with detainees in most cases being beyond the reach of judicial oversight and subjected to torture and other forms of violence.

The constitution included section 12 in the Bill of Rights to outlaw this abuse of power and deprivation of personal freedom by guaranteeing everyone physical freedom and protection against detention without trial, Judge Jafta said.

www.samigration.com

Time to rethink immigration

The Citizen – 15 August 2021

Without a sound immigration policy in place, our economy is at serious risk of a severe skills shortage.

The United Nations estimates that one in every 113 people worldwide are migrants. That’s more than 250 million people who have left their country of birth to seek better opportunities or apply their skills in other countries.

Unfortunately, our immigration policy has not kept up to global standards, with decisions about migration being made on a mechanical application of rules instead of the integrated intelligence-based approach that is best practice globally.

To date, government has seen international immigration as a routine administrative function instead of a process that can bring tremendous benefits to South Africa. The latest Green Paper on International Immigration is designed to overcome these limitations and bring South Africa in line with global best practice.

Key to this is the country’s immediate need to integrate with a highly connected world and to start taking advantage of the influx of talented migrants from other parts of Africa and the world. A recent McKinsey report estimates that the global economy will have 40 million fewer workers with university degrees in 2020 than is required.

Without a sound immigration policy in place, our economy is at serious risk of a severe skills shortage. In South Africa, pressure on the economy is exacerbated by a lack of skilled workers.

South Africa has also been criticised for its lack of competitiveness in terms of attracting skills internationally. Considering the political instability prevalent in many sub-Saharan African countries, including our immediate SADC neighbours, the need for an effective and equitable refugee policy is paramount.

The proposed establishment of a Border Management Authority to balance the facilitation of legitimate trade and travel with security is a welcome development. Integrated border control would help ensure the effective and efficient management of refugees and asylum seekers who have fled their countries of birth.

As a whole, South Africa has not been overly welcoming to refugees and asylum seekers. Of the 70 000 applications for asylum the country receives per year, more than 90% are rejected.

At present, there are fewer than 100 000 legally recognised refugees in South Africa. And in 2015 alone, more than 54 000 people were deported – at high cost to taxpayers.

In addition, asylum seekers are often met with corrupt officials who demand payment for services that should be rendered freely. A recent research report by Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration & Society found that 30% of asylum seekers encountered some form of corruption during the asylum process.

In fact, 13% reported that they were unable to access an office because they were not able to pay the officials demanding payment. The new legislation will potentially address such discrepancies.

. Considering the national economic and strategic importance of South Africa’s immigration policy, it is imperative that citizens play an active role in shaping our country’s approach to international skills migration

www.samigration.com

Stateless man may work and stay in SA

The Citizen – 21 August 2021

Acting Judge MB Mokoena set aside the minister’s refusal to grant an exemption and a permanent residence permit to Frederick Ngubane and gave the minister 90 days to reconsider his application.

The High Court in Pretoria has granted an order to a stateless man, allowing him to work and live in South Africa while the home affairs minister reconsiders his application for permanent residence.

Acting Judge MB Mokoena set aside the minister’s refusal to grant an exemption and a permanent residence permit to Frederick Ngubane and gave the minister 90 days to reconsider his application.

Ngubane, assisted by Lawyers for Human Rights, initially asked the court to declare that stateless ness was a special circumstance for purposes of the Immigration Act.

But Mokoena ruled that it would be premature to make a pronouncement on the issue before it was established by the department if Ngubane was indeed stateless and before the minister decided if statelessness constituted special circumstances for purposes of the Act.

The judge said the minister was the one to decide, after investigations, if Ngubane was stateless or not and if such status constitutes special circumstances.

Ngubane could again approach the court for relief if he was not satisfied with the ultimate decision. Ngubane alleged he was born in Newcastle in South Africa in 1990, but went to live in Kenya with his mother after his father’s death in 1993.

After his mother was murdered in 2002, he went to live in Uganda with a friend of his mother, but in 2009 returned to SA via Tanzania and Mozambique.

He alleged he was allowed to enter South Africa by producing his birth certificate, but he was robbed of the certificate and that home affairs then refused a late birth registration.

The Ugandan and Kenyan governments confirmed that he was not their citizen but the Tanzanian government linked his origin “to some other East African countries”.

www.samigration.com