BY SARAH STEPHEN
While hunting for the 46 escapees from Villawood detention centre, immigration officials raided a factory in a western suburb of Sydney, arresting 21 immigrants they claim were working illegally. The group was taken to Villawood on July 29 where they are awaiting the "finalisation" of their cases.
Another 12 people were picked up in the same week in Canberra. The group, five men and seven women from Vietnam, Thailand, China, the Philippines and Malaysia, were alleged to have breached their visa conditions by working.
Immigration department raids on June 20 resulted in 27 people from Thailand and Laos being placed in detention centres in South Australia. Twenty-four had overstayed the duration of their visas and three had breached visa conditions.
While its policy of detaining asylum seekers who arrive without valid visas has attracted the most attention and public anger, the federal government is also pursuing a vindictive and discriminatory campaign against those who may have arrived legally but are still denied the right to work.
Denied rights
Shaik Anisur Rahman, a Sydney Bangladeshi community leader, knows some of those picked up in the raid in western Sydney. He told Green Left Weekly that many of them can't be deported because they have valid applications for refugee status being assessed.
"They are denied the right to work, and on top of that have to pay for every day they stay in detention. It used to be $139 a day. The immigration department will release them on the condition they pay a bond of, say, $25,000. This bond is withheld if any of the conditions of the bridging visa are broken, such as doing paid work. This is a lot of money, and it is only people who have strong and supportive communities who are able to pay the money."
While most "illegal" workers are simply those who have overstayed their visas, commonly tourists from Western countries, large numbers are asylum seekers forced to break the conditions of their bridging visas in order to survive.
Many asylum seekers don't have work rights because on July 1, 1997, the government introduced a new condition whereby an asylum seeker only has the right to work and access Medicare if they apply for a protection visa within 45 days of arriving. If they apply after 45 days, they have no right to work and no right to Medicare.
Rahman described a family he knew who did not have access to Medicare. When one of their children got sick and had to spend time in hospital, it cost them $1000 a night.
"In addition", Rahman explained, "if you appeal your case directly to the minister or take part in a class action, your bridging visa with work rights is cancelled and replaced with one that has no work rights. The visa also has printed on it 'not valid for travel', so you can't leave the country either."
Rahman estimated that most "illegal" workers he knew were paid $4-5 per hour, cash in hand. Some of the people taken to Villawood in recent weeks had been working as chefs, factory hands, attendants at petrol stations and as taxi drivers, he said.
"I know over 100 people with good skills, chefs and mechanics, people with Australian-recognised trade certificates, but they don't have work rights and can't work", he said. "At the same time, the Australian government is bringing in more migrants with skills. Yet we already have people with skills in Australia who can't work."
'Reduce oxygen'
Just as he has ignored calls to end the suffering of asylum seekers held in detention, immigration minister Philip Ruddock has also ignored the plight of many of those working "illegally".
During June and July, Ruddock's department mailed a million letters to households and a more comprehensive kit to 30,000 businesses asking for help to find "illegal" workers — and telling employers how to spot them.
The leaflet explains that a recent review of "illegal" workers in Australia recommended using stronger penalties against those who employ them.
"At present", it explains, "it is an offence under the Crimes Act punishable with a fine of up to $10,000 to employ someone you know is an illegal worker".
"The government is proposing legislation to introduce further legal sanctions for employing illegal workers".
This campaign "will reduce the oxygen for those who've overstayed their visas", Ruddock told the Sydney Morning Herald.
But government figures show how contrived the minister's vendetta is. The total number of people overstaying their visas in Australia last financial year was 58,748; it is estimated that half of these people are working, a whopping 0.006% of Australia's 8.9 million-strong work-force.
The United States, in comparison, has an estimated 5.5 million "illegal" immigrants (0.039% of the total population). In per capita terms, Australia in 1998-99 had an estimated "illegal" population of 2819 for every million people, compared with the USA's 20,328 per million people.
Of the 53,000 overstayers in Australia in the 98-99 financial year, 25% had overstayed less than 12 months, 25% had overstayed for more than nine years, and the remaining 50% had overstayed between one and nine years.
Between July 2000 and April 2001, almost 13,000 people "illegally" in Australia were located, either working in breach of visa conditions or overstaying the duration of their visa. In the 1999-2000 financial year the figure was 14,551.
Many overstayers simply wish to extend their stay, and they report themselves to immigration and leave of their own accord. Others have been working undetected for some time.
Exploited
"Illegal" workers are employed in a few key industries. Of those "illegal" workers identified by the immigration department in 1998-99, 17% were working in restaurants, 16% worked as prostitutes, 16% worked in factories, the clothing and meat industries, 12% were working in hotels or accommodation, and 11% in farming and the rural industry.
Because they have no legal status, much of the work in these sectors has very poor and highly exploitative rates of pay and conditions. Employers are able to get away with appalling wages because "illegal" workers have no bargaining power whatsoever. Even many unions dob in "illegal" workers rather than organise them and defend their rights.
Employers do well out of "illegal" workers. Government data confirms this, indicating that employers rarely "dob in" "illegal" workers. In the 1998-99 financial year, only 12 out of nearly 7000 reportings came from employers. It is usually workmates or neighbours who turn in people working "illegally". Others are located through data matching between immigration, taxation and social security.
However, not everyone who is caught without a valid visa is thrown into detention. Detention centre populations certainly don't reflect the fact that the largest number of visa overstayers are from Britain and the United States.
The government chooses to draw attention to rates of overstaying rather than absolute numbers. For example, in its report Protecting the border: immigration compliance, it lists the estimated number of people unlawfully in Australia as at June 30, 1999. An estimate for Britain was 5759 overstayers out of a total 2.5 million temporary entrants. An estimate for Iraq was 177 overstayers out of a total 2750 temporary entrants. Britain has 32 times as many overstayers, yet it is Iraq which is identified as more of a problem because its overstayer rate is higher.
Two recent examples underline how government assumptions discriminate against people from the Third World.
Two cousins from Moldova who came to Australia for a brief holiday in October 2000 were taken to Villawood detention centre on the suspicion that their reasons for being in Australia were not credible.
In an attempt to avoid being deported and to clear their names, the cousins prolonged their stay in Villawood until July while they pursued their case through the courts. They eventually lost the fight and were deported on July 11.
In another case, a Colombian man currently held at Villawood detention centre arrived in Australia eight months ago on a tourist visa to visit a friend. He was taken straight to Villawood after arousing the suspicions of immigration officials at the airport, presumably because he was from a "high-risk" country.