Major acceleration in the processing of asylum seekers

In the past three months, processing of asylum applications at the primary level has increased, from 1,002 in December 2023; to 1,479 in January 2024 and 2,037 in February 2024 (see Chart 1).

The number of applications processed exceeded the number of new applications submitted in February 2024 for the first time since early 2022, as international borders reopened and new applications began pouring in due to a huge backlog, very slow processing times, inadequate processing resources and a huge decline in immigration. compliance resources.

This increase in the number of primary applications processed would reflect an increase in trained processing staff associated with the government’s $160 million package to tackle the growing number of unresolved asylum seeker cases, which has now reached a record 110,711 . That includes 36,608 applications that have been rejected at both the primary level and at the AAT, but have still not left Australia.

The $160 million package marks the first time the government has explicitly tried to address the massive increase in undeserved asylum claims that began in 2015-2016 through a massive labor trafficking scam.

The main source countries for primary asylum applications of 1,792 in February 2024 were China (182); Vietnam (151); India (147); Philippines (120) and Vanuatu (91).

Two new source countries that entered the top ten in February 2024 were the Palestinian Authority (88) and Colombia (49). The former is said to be due to the conflict in Gaza, while the latter may reflect the large increase in the number of student visa holders from Colombia, the tightening of onshore student visa application procedures and the closure of the Covid visa .

The number of asylum applications from Pacific island states remains high, but stable. These have a very low approval rate.

Asylum applications to the AAT

The growth in the number of asylum applications to the AAT continued in February 2024 with 948 new applications (the highest this financial year) and 890 decisions (also the highest this year).

The total number of undecided asylum applications to the AAT reached a new record of 41,648 (see graph 2). Even with the additional resources allocated to the AAT to process the asylum backlog more quickly, the faster processing in the first phase is likely to mean that new asylum applications to the AAT will remain high and the AAT backlog will remain high for a large part from 2024 will continue to grow. .

Relocations

The removal of rejected asylum seekers remains modest (less than 15 per month), as the additional resources for immigration compliance provided in the 2023 budget were only enough to return this function to the levels it was at when it was cut between 2016 and 2017 . The current deportation law, even if passed in an amended form, would make little practical difference given the scale of the challenge.

Australians will have to learn to accept that a large number of asylum cases living in the Australian community, including an increasing number of rejected asylum seekers living in the shadows of society (currently over 36,000), will be part of our future.

What the government’s $160 million strategy could do is limit the rate of growth of this phenomenon. It is far below the level of resources needed to address the overall situation, after Peter Dutton failed to do anything about it when it first started in 2015-2016. It would have been much cheaper to tackle the labor trafficking fraud when it first started, compared to now.