Australia to detain tourists who overstay visas amid immigration crackdown
More than 77,000 visa overstayers face detention or departure as Australia cracks down on immigration violations.
Australia will begin detaining visa overstayers as part of a broader immigration crackdown, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced.
The Australian Border Force will expand its team by 100 compliance officers, who will work to detain or encourage the departure of roughly 77,000 people currently living in Australia without a valid visa, Burke said Thursday.
“Before 2015, we had a routine process in Australia for overstayers where, when people had overstayed a visa, we would bring people into detention centres … and within a few weeks they would organise their own flight and leave,” Burke announced at the National Press Club.
A new “No Further Stay” provision would prevent people arriving on tourist visas from lodging new applications once inside the country, while international students would be required to advance their qualifications when seeking a new study visa, closing off the option of jumping between courses at low-level institutions to extend their stay.