"This book explores Australia's ambivalent legal and political response to 'irregular' migrants - asylum seekers, 'boat people', 'illegals', 'queue jumpers' and 'economic migrants'."--Back cover.

Forced displacement affects millions annually, as they search for safety, yet how many of us take the time to truly understand the asylum seeker experience? Not only confronted with the risks of irregular migration, asylum seekers must navigate border politics imposed by countries seeking to deter and punish those in need. Nameless bodies who wash up on the shores globally have become a contemporary norm. As humans are all deeply connected, a moral responsibility exists to comprehend why asylum seekers seek refuge even if the stakes of death are high. When understanding prevails, compassion and welcome often follow. However, policies of deterrence, signalling to refugees that they are “not welcome” have overshadowed an appreciation to understand. Despite asylum seeker deaths being well-publicised, government policies that focus on preventing “illegal immigration” often resonate with the populous. The question arises as to why a lack of understanding and hospitality is the dominant discourse. Possible clues are found on faraway Christmas Island, an Australian outpost located in the Indian Ocean, situated much closer to Indonesia than Australia. This book, the result of extensive research, reveals how Australia’s asylum seeker policy plays out at the Australian border. It examines how Christmas Islanders responded to asylum seekers and provides insights into why humans respond to strangers in need or turn them away. It opens the aperture for future discussions around the global complexities of welcoming asylum seekers, host communities and immigration border policies, and encourages replacing asylum seeker border deaths with hope and solidarity.

The enclosed papers are the culmination of a project Dr. John Crank and Dr. Colleen Kadleck carried out assessing issues facing the police into the early 21st century. The papers are future oriented, in the sense that they anticipate trends visible today. Everywhere, the contributing scholars found that the organizational concept, practice, and function of the police were undergoing transition. Yet, the seeming state-level hardening of the police function was ubiquitous. Two themes were noteworthy. On the one hand, in developing or ‘second world’ countries, police face endemic problems of corruption, organized crime, and drugs. Police, in response, are undergoing centralization and intensification of law enforcement activities. In countries with first world economies – Canada, the United States, and Australia – contributors discovered trends toward expansion of the police function, a trend described by Brodeur as toward 'high policing'. It reflects the growing reliance on surveillance for crime control and for the tracking of minority, indigenous, and immigrant populations in crime prevention efforts. The results suggest that governments, sometimes encouraged by their citizenry, seem increasingly to rely on the police to deal with a broad array of social as well as criminal problems. This book was originally published as a special issue of Police Practice and Research.

Unaccompanied and separated children continue to be caught up in programs to deflect unauthorised Australian boat arrivals to offshore processing centres. If such children do make it to Australia, the processes for identifying children travelling alone are inadequate, with too much reliance placed on the self-identification of such children. No child victim of trafficking has been identified in Australia since 1994. Australia's refugee status determination system was established with adult asylum seekers as the norm. Children face obvious disadvantage in both articulating their story and in being heard. At the crucial first point of contact with authorities children are required to articulate their need for protection without either an advisor or an effective guardian. Case studies of children within the asylum process also suggest that immigration officials and officials at appellate level have been poorly trained and have lacked the skills to deal with child asylum seekers with appropriate sensitivity. Another barrier faced by these children is legal: questions remain as to how well the international definition of refugee has been read to accommodate the particular experiences of children. It is hoped that this report will encourage Australian officials to think seriously about children as refugees in their own right - most particularly when the children are travelling alone.This Report was funded by the MacArthur Foundation (Chicago), the Australian Research Council and the Myer Foundation.Also available Seeking Asylum Alone - A Comparative Study- Unaccompanied and Separated Children and Refugee Protection in Australia, the UK and the US, by Jacqueline Bhabha and Mary Crock.

Interrogating the War on Terror presents a critique of contemporary war culture and politics, introducing a range of political, philosophical, legal, artistic and social perspectives on a devastating war. Bringing together contributors from the United States, UK and Australia—implicitly dissenting from within the Coalition of the Willing—this volume explores the discourses and cultural effects of the current “war on terror”. Is the so-called war on terror justified? Seeking an ethical engagement with the problems and paradoxes of this global conflict, the authors situate the historical and legal meanings of terror and terrorism alongside the exploitation of such terms by the Bush Administration and other governments in recent years. Contributions by philosophers, sociologists, and law and literature scholars raise questions about neo-conservatism, freedom, security and the new legitimation of torture, and demonstrate how this war brings political and discursive power to bear on democracy, human rights and individuals in places as far-flung as Iraq, Bali, and the U.S. Artworks by internationally renowned war artist George Gittoes, and several essays by cultural theorists return a critical emphasis to the role of visual media, affect, gender and popular culture in understanding and rethinking war. Interrogating the War on Terror’s multi-disciplinary and international perspectives will be useful to scholars and students alike in addressing this highly topical issue. The essays reference mainstream sources and widely-documented events in the war on terror, making it accessible also to the general reader.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ..." How has Australia risen to Emma Lazarus' great challenge? This overview of the historical, social and political contexts that have shaped Australia's recent treatment of asylum seekers offers a clear-eyed view of the many dimensions of the asylum seeker predicament, including its psychological and humanitarian consequences, and lays out an agenda for change in policy. Sir Gustav Nossal, the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser, Senator Lyn Allison, Phillip Adams, Professor Stuart MacIntyre, and Lindsay Tanner MP introduce the six sections. Julian Burnside QC, Dr Carmen Lawrence, Peter Mares, Pamela Curr, Michael Clyne, Linda Briskman, Derrick Silove, Michael Gordon, Arnold Zable and David Manne are among the contributors to the 20 chapters. Yearning to Breathe Free is a passionate but informed work that is multi-faceted, thought-provoking, and ultimately hopeful. All royalties for this book go to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.