The 'overlooked children' of boat arrivals have only known life in Australia. Now they could be deported under proposed migration laws

Children of asylum seekers who have grown up in Australia fear that after 11 years they will be deported under proposed changes to immigration laws.  (Supplied)

Arad and Pouya arrived in Australia on the same boat in 2012, from the same country, fleeing the same dangers.

Yet, only one of them has been granted a permanent visa.

Arad’s fate was finally secured in 2023, and the 46-year-old now owns a business in Hobart and is living “happy and safe”.

But as Pouya approaches his 18th birthday, he still can’t plan a future.

He remains on a bridging visa, unable to get excited about university or job prospects like his classmates.

“We’re stateless right now … We’re trying to get a visa by the time I finish school so I can start working,” he told the ABC.

Pouya left Iran aged five, and is among a cohort of young people calling themselves “the overlooked children of boat people”.

They grew up in Australia as “fluent Aussies” surrounded by friends, family and community.

Now, under the government’s new deportation bill, they fear they will be sent back to countries they’ve never known.

“Same boat should mean same outcome,” the group says.

After spending most of their lives in uncertainty, they are calling for the government to listen to their stories and show “empathy, compassion, and understanding”.

A visa ‘predicament’ faced by thousands 

Bardia is a 15-year-old living in Melbourne with his parents and younger brother.

His family arrived in Australia in 2013 after fleeing Iran.

He says he’s proud of his Persian heritage, but his identity has been shaped by life in Australia.

And now, due to what he calls a “unique predicament”, he’s at threat of being uprooted from the only home he’s ever known.

Bradia’s “predicament” is shared by almost 10,000 people who arrived in Australia by boat in 2012 or 2013 and had their refugee claims rejected in a ‘fast-tracked’ assessment process.

Daniel Ghezelbash, deputy director at the UNSW Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, says the processes didn’t allow people a fair chance to put their case forward.

“We’re talking about people here who were failed by a system that the government concedes was unfair,” he told the ABC.

“It’s very cruel to leave people in limbo for more than a decade, particularly young people who have grown up here.”

The process was widely considered to be a “defective mechanism” for assessing protection claims, including by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Labor party themselves.

It has trapped people in a state of limbo, living in the community on bridging visas with restricted rights to work, study and travel.

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We have a visa to stay in the country, but we can’t work, we can’t study … We have no financial support from the government either.

^{— Parsa, 20, arrived in Australia age seven}

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I can’t start anything, so I’ve just been rotting away in my room.

^{— Parsa, 20, arrived in Australia age seven}

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We’ve been suffering for way too long. It’s been over a decade.

^{— Hasti, 16, arrived in Australia age four}

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I’m more accustomed to anything happening here than I am anywhere else.

^{— Maryam, 13, arrived in Australia at nine-months-old}

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My friends, my mentors, and my loved ones are all here.

^{— Bardia, 15, arrived in Australia age four} 

From limbo to an ‘unsafe’ future

Hasti, now in year 11, came to Australia when she was four years old.

Her bridging visa recently expired so the family is back to square one.

She says they have spent most of their time in Australia living without Medicare or any kind of support while her mum was unwell, and now it’s “unfair” to be worried about deportation.

Pouya’s family is in a similar situation, waiting on a ministerial intervention to determine their next steps.

Both families fear their time may be up, as the government tries to pass a bill that would broaden the immigration minister’s powers to force deportations.

The government has said the bill’s focus is on about 150 people who are currently in immigration detention, including some who have committed crimes here.

But Dr Ghezelbash says it could impact thousands of people “failed” by the fast-tracked visa process.

“It is in no way limited to people who may have committed serious crimes or in fact done anything wrong during that time in Australia,” he said.

“The cohort it impacts is far larger than that.”

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My family is quite worried about having to go back to Iran. It’s extremely unsafe.

^{— Maryam, 13, arrived in Australia at nine months old}

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I don’t want to go back to Iran. My family says it’s really scary and dangerous.

^{— Elnaz, nine, born in Australia}

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It’s really hard. It’s been impacting everyone in my family. My dad has been worrying. My mum has been crying.

^{— Hasti, 16, arrived in Australia age four}

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If we get deported, we’re going to be separated from friends, and maybe family … It’s kind of tearing me apart.

^{— Bahareh, 17, arrived in Australia age five}

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I’m worried about this bill passing and the war in Iran … we’ve all lost a lot of things and wouldn’t have come here unless our lives were in danger.

^{— Bahareh, 17, arrived in Australia age five}

What the government wants from the bill

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has said the legislation was needed to close a “loophole”.

• The government has said it is “very limited” in the ways it could remove people from Australia who had no further legal options to remain.
• Countries like Iran do not accept involuntary returns.
• The bill will require people to apply for passports so they can be “voluntarily” returned.
• Failure to comply would attract a minimum prison sentence of one year, and up to five years.
• Travel bans could be imposed on countries if they refuse to facilitate deportations.
• The bill would also allow the minister to reverse refugee assessments.

A Department of Home Affairs spokesperson told the ABC the bill was necessary to address circumstances where non-citizens who have no valid reason to remain in Australia and are not cooperating with “appropriate and lawful efforts” to remove them.

“Anyone with an ongoing protection visa application cannot be subject to a removal pathway direction,” they said.

Fears over family separation

Bahareh and Maryam are sisters who both travelled on the boat with their parents to make the journey to Australia in 2012.

They now have younger siblings who were born in the country, and are terrified the family will be separated.

Bahareh says the stress of being sent back to Iran has been making her mentally and physically unwell.

A report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights said it was clear deportation orders could result in the separation of family members, including Australian citizen children being separated from their parents.

The committee also found the bill limits several fundamental human rights, including the rights of children, right to protection of the family, and the right to liberty and a fair trial.

Federal Labor MPs and two Labor senators who contributed to the report are calling for large chunks of the bill to be scrapped.

Last month, a parliamentary inquiry began into the draft legislation, which was blocked in the Senate in March.

And there has since been growing opposition to the bill from community groups, voters, human rights lawyers.

“This is one of the most draconian and concerning amendments to the Migration Act that I’ve seen in decades,” Dr Ghezelbash said.

“The more we dig deeper into the specifics, the more concerning elements we find.”

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My little brother was born here, and he doesn’t know any of the customs of what it’s like to live elsewhere.

^{— Maryam, 13, arrived in Australia at nine months old}

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I came here when I was very young, I call this place my home. It’s just very, very unfair, like truly not fair for all those kids who have been raised here grew up here.

^{— Hasti, 17, arrived in Australia age four}

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I worry my family could be separated … the thought is absolutely unbearable to me to think what life would be like without my family as a whole.

^{— Bahareh, 17, arrived in Australia age five}

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My parents and I have been involved in the women’s fight freedom. This year, our family has been contacted, arrested and questioned back home in Iran. So it is a major threat, and they know who we are.

^{— Pouya, 17, arrived in Australia age five}

‘We are from the same boat’

Dr Ghezelbash says the plight of the children of asylum seekers – who now face added layers of “cruelty” – hits at the heart of the problem.

“We had a failed system for accurately assessing claims in the first place,” he said.

Arad – who was on the same boat as some of the children – can’t understand how his situation is any different to theirs.

He is an activist like Parsa and Pouya’s parents who fear prosecution in Iran.

But, they have not been found to be owed protection.

The Department of Home Affairs spokesperson said applications for all non-citizens who wish to remain in Australia are considered on an individual basis.

Arad is urging the government to treat others in his community “like humans”.

“I got the permanent visa and they are ignored or denied by the system,” Arad told the ABC.

“The system damaged them. It pushed them. This is not fair. This is not OK.

“We are from the same boat, we are the same skin and same shoes. Please, just stop this limbo.”

The bill is likely to return to the Senate for a vote in May.