Rescue Flight Deemed Racist by Evacuees
Australia may have botched immigration yet again
Two days ago the Australian government made a big announcement that affects those wishing to travel to Australia from China.
Until the viral crisis has been brought under control, Australia won’t be accepting anyone who isn’t a citizen or permanent resident of Australia. If you are a citizen and want to come home, you’ll need to remain in isolation for 2 weeks upon your return.
This mandate will be reviewed 14 days from the date of writing and may be extended until the Australian government feels that the crisis has been brought under control. Anyone who tries to travel to Australia who isn’t a citizen will be rejected at the airport and may have their visa canceled.
This action taken by Australia further confirms the severity of the crisis and will have a huge impact on the lives of many Chinese Australians. Australia has the highest concentration of Chinese descendants outside of Asia, so the population is going to feel these limitations strongly.
Time to Evacuate
Along with many other countries, Australia went to the effort of evacuating its citizens out of Wuhan, the Chinese city where the crisis started.
In a joint effort with Qantas, the Australian government sent its evacuees to Christmas island to serve out a mandatory isolation period before they’ll be allowed back onto Australia’s mainland.
As one could expect, neither the locals nor the evacuees are happy.
Controversy has come out of the plan for various reasons. One reason is that the facility that will house the evacuees is an offshore refugee camp, a facility famously used to house those under detention for illegally trying to gain access to Australia.
A Dark Past
Australia has a very dark history of abuse when it comes to the treatment of those trying to gain access to the country. US President Donald Trump even praised Australia’s immigration policies, which itself should cause the country to think very long and hard about wrongful and immoral practices that have been normalized over time.
Australia’s sketchy and racist past has fuelled speculation that the reason the Christmas Island detention center was chosen was that the overwhelming majority of Wuhan evacuees are Chinese Australian. Skeptics wonder if the evacuees had been predominantly white, whether the Australian government may have found a hospital somewhere in Australia’s mainland to house them.
This speculation while extreme may not be unjustified. Regarding the offshore detention centers, a UN report states that
“inadequate mental health services, serious safety concerns and instances of assault, sexual abuse, self-harm, and suspicious deaths; and about reports that harsh conditions compelled some asylum seekers to return to their country of origin despite the risks that they face there.”
As Trump tweeted of Australia’s immigration policy, there’s “much to be learned”.
Tone Deaf
It seems that even if the Australian government didn’t make this decision as a racial move, they were certainly tone-deaf regarding the implications.
They didn’t think that there would be historical significance behind housing a group of Chinese descendants in an offshore detention facility that has been condemned by the UN. Somehow international criticism of the country’s immigration system hasn’t made them sensitive to decisions such as this.
At a press conference, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told reporters
“I can’t clear out a hospital in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane”.
The situation is being made worse by the fact that other countries are not following the same strategy.
The United States, a country that also has off-country islands and facilities they could be using to isolate people, is bringing its citizens into the mainland. Citizens will be housed under quarantine at a military base in California.
The Residents
Roughly 1800 people live on Christmas Island, and they’re feeling unfairly treated regarding the decision to send people to their island.
The island already has a history of resentment about being governed by officials in Canberra who live thousands of kilometers away. This decision has once again proven that Canberra will make decisions without consulting them, and will carry them out whether the residents like the plan or don’t.
As fear increases and rumors spread about the coronavirus, residents will only feel angrier and more unsafe the longer the occupants of the detention center stay on their island.
Christmas Island doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of medical supplies that will be needed to look after the quarantined evacuees, so the equipment will have to be shipped in. The Australian Medical Association told Channel 9:
“We feel that the repatriation to Christmas Island… to a place previously the focus of populations under enormous mental and physical trauma and anguish… is not a really appropriate solution.”
With the locals, nor the evacuees, nor the doctors on board with this plan; one would think the Australian government would listen for a change and think of another solution.
They could even ask another country for help or advice on what could be done to improve the situation. But history shows that the government is just going to charge ahead anyway and make their plan work the best it can. Nothing really changes.