Frank Marrinan, Sydney
Small victories at great expense: Nazeer Mohammed Packir Mohammed was sent on Aprl 14 from Villawood detention centre to his original destination — Britain — something he set out to do a year ago, at his own expense. But this time Australia's taxpayers picked up the tab. Nazeer, a British Overseas Citizen (BOC), got hit by a bureaucratic double-whammy — an instructive little story.
The Brits apparently run a number of citizenship categories, sort of first and second class, as they have for people from Hong Kong for example, and in Nazeer's case, certain Indians — a legacy of the Raj.
Nazeer came to grief when, with his visa to Australia nearly expired, he took out his BOC passport, and flew from Sydney to London. But the passport only allows the citizen a three-month visit to the UK, and with the gifted intuition only airport immigration officers have, the one at Heathrow decided Nazeer would overstay, refused him entry, packed him back on a plane and deported him — not to his native India, but to Sydney.
Why? "Well, mate, that's where you came from."
Then, at Sydney airport, Nazeer's expired visa took him direct to Villawood detention centre. He rotted behind the wire for another 10 months — a psychological mess, morbidly depressed, all appeals rejected, propped up by visitors, wondering forlornly if his application for full British citizenship — an upgrading he could legitimately count on — would ever be processed.
"Friends" intervened on his behalf by mail to the UK and in person to the British consulate in Sydney. Once it came through that full citizenship had been granted, and Nazeer was "naturalised" at Villawood by the man from the consulate, it took nearly a month for case officers to assist in getting a passport for Nazeer and, while he remained in detention, another six weeks for the document to arrive at Villawood.
At the eleventh hour, the immigration department and Global Solutions Ltd — which run the detention centre — reverted to type. Notified the night before of his departure, leaving him only fleeting time to farewell fellow detainees, Nazeer was driven off to the airport the next day at 4 am.
From Green Left Weekly, April 27, 2005.
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