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Monday, October 31, 2016

Australia Plans to Ban for Life Refugees Arriving by Boat

Australia on Sunday Oct 31,2016 announced plans to ratchet up its tough policy against refugees by banning any asylum seeker who attempts to reach its shores by boat from ever visiting the country.

A previous government introduced a policy on July 19, 2013, banning refugees who arrive by boat from Indonesian ports after that date from ever being resettled in Australia.

Under legislation to be introduced to Parliament next week, thousands of asylum seekers who have returned to their homelands in the Middle East, Africa and Asia would be banned for life from ever traveling to Australia as tourists, to do business or as an Australian's spouse, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.

The new policy would apply to all asylum seekers who have attempted to reach Australia since July 19, 2013.

More than 51,000 asylum seekers arrived in Australian waters by boat during the six years the former center-left Labor Party government was in power from 2007 until 2013.

More than 20,000 arrived in 2013.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said asylum seeker children would be exempt from the visa ban and he would have discretion to make exceptions for adults in cases where to do so was in the public interest.

Daniel Webb, director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Center, said the change would permanently separate families and "entrench the limbo" for asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Papua New Guinea

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