a`786: Aussie AP: Australia Takes Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

news.com.au


Cuban, Haitian refugees taken
By Maria Hawthorne
23apr02

AUSTRALIA is taking refugees from Cuba and Haiti as part of
an international push to stop asylum seekers "shopping" for
the settlement country of their choice.

Most of those fleeing the Caribbean nations hope to end up
in the United States.

But the US government does not want to take them, fearing
it will lead to an influx of more illegal immigrants from
the island nations.

So Cubans and Haitians are being resettled in Australia
under its offshore humanitarian intake. In return, the US
and other resettlement countries are taking asylum seekers
who had hoped to live in Australia.

The move was part of a push to improve countries' ability
to protect their borders from organised people smuggling
gangs and other people arriving illegally, Immigration
Minister Philip Ruddock said today.

"What we're looking to see is that people's migration
intentions of reaching Australia, even if they are
refugees, is not realised - that is, that they will often
go to places that they hadn't anticipated they might be
going to and hadn't planned to go to," Mr Ruddock said.

"We think that will be a very important part of the
maintenance of the international protection system." Mr
Ruddock said Australia and the US were seeking to reinforce
the message that the international protection system would
only work if resettlement places could be found.

But the only way those places could be secured was if
countries were able to manage their borders effectively and
prioritise the people that they accommodate on the basis
that they are refugees.

"Our view is that resettlement of those who have the
greatest need of our compassion and our support is the most
appropriate way to respond to international crises," he
said.

"People ought to be able to remain in a country of safe and
first asylum and to go home when it's safe and secure to do
so."

Mr Ruddock told the Commonwealth Lawyers' Association in
London that Australia had a long and proud tradition of
immigration, with 25 per cent of Australians born overseas.

But he said illegal immigrants, often arriving by boat
through countries such as Indonesia, were stretching
Australia's capacity to help those most in need of its
help.

"Some asylum seekers come from countries where there is
little risk of persecution, but which are less prosperous
than Australia," he said.

"They seek to use our refugee determination processes to
obtain the right to work in Australia or to access health
services at Australian taxpayer expense while their claims
are assessed."



AAP


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