Don’t release refugees before security clearance, says Marion Le

 

• by: Lanai Vasek
• From: The Australian
• January 18, 2012 3:23PM

Marion Le says moving asylum-seekers into the community while they were awaiting ASIO checks is not be the best way forward. Source: The Daily Telegraph

REFUGEE lawyer Marion Le has warned against releasing asylum-seekers awaiting their security clearance into the community saying there is no guarantee they won’t pose a threat to the safety of everyday Australians.

Ms Le, a refugee advocate and staunch opponent of mandatory detention, told The Australian Online while she rejected the lengthy periods in detention for some asylum-seekers, moving them into the community while they were awaiting Australian Security Intelligence Organisation checks was not be the best way forward.

“If people are considered to be in touch with people who are in another country, and they are a threat to us, then I think letting them out on security bracelets is not going to change that (threat) at all,” Ms Le said.

“I think the step is a bit too much if we decide we are going to release people who haven’t been security cleared when, you and I, don’t know what the security problem is.”

Ms Le’s comments follow a push by senior Labor MP Daryl Melham, as reported in The Australian today, to have genuine asylum-seekers moved into the community on control orders or wearing electronic monitoring devices while awaiting their ASIO checks.

Ms Le, who last year said the Gillard government’s Malaysian Solution was a “nightmare” policy and advocated for the Howard government’s Nauru facility to be reopened, said ASIO should be forced to release the reasons for an adverse security assessment to refugees so they have the chance to appeal.

“If a person is deemed to be a security risk, natural justice that says they should be able to answer those allegations,” Ms Le said.

“What ASIO needs to do is to release to the people themselves the information on which they made their judgements on.”

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre’s Pamela Curr said the idea to release asylum-seekers into the community was a good one but rejected that those released needed to be monitored.

“What Australians don’t understand is having an adverse security threat does not mean a person is going to go and blow up Myer,” Ms Curr said.

“The introduction of ankle bracelets would be a really dangerous move backward. Introducing this form of security for people found guilty of no crime would be a terrible thing to do in this country.”

ASIO does not currently provide reasons for its decisions, and recipients of adverse assessments are not allowed to challenge the material upon which those assessments are based.

Those subject to adverse reports must remain in immigration detention.

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