Illegal Immigrants

[Artie]

The Australian government has finally bitten the bullet with regard to illegal immigrants by preventing the Norwegian registered vessel "The Tampa" from unloading its cargo of refugees on Christmas Island. When the captain of the vessel disobeyed an order not to enter Australian territorial waters and turned his vessel towards Christmas Island, members of the SAS were sent aboard to prevent the vessel from reaching that island.

What are your thoughts on the issue of migrants "jumping the queue" by travelling to Indonesia and then going to sea in an endeavour to land in Australia? And what are your opinion about the way the Australian Government has acted in this matter?

[Andu1]

Artie,

do you, or any other Aussie on the board, have any details on the total number of illegals entering Australia?

I've heard it has trebled in the last 12 months and that it costs between $10 000 and $20 000 to be smuggled in rather than take the long road through legitimate channels.

I've also heard that for every 'queue jumper' a legitimate claim is delayed until the 'queue jumpers' claim is settled.

I'd like some information on this because it would impact on my views.

But, in the case of the Tampa, I feel for the Captain. He did the right thing in responding to an SOS, got stuck with over 400 people who threatened to jump obverboard if he didn't turn his ship around and sail to Christmas Island (which has no port) and now he's caught in the politics.


I too, would be interested in hearing what others think of the situation and how it was/is being handled.

[Artie]

Just so that everyone knows my position on illegal immigrants, I am sick and tired of these queue jumpers. They take the place of genuine and legitimate refugees who wait in line for their entry into Australia. There are over 5,000 other illegal refugees in Indonesia waiting to see the outcome of the Tampa incident. Australia cannot be seen to give in to the illegals on the Tampa. Lets be realistic, they are virtually pirates. They made threats to the captain and forced him to take his ship to Australian waters, when he was by law supposed to take them to the nearest port, which was in Lampok, Indonesia.

[Artie]

This is an example of these 'poor' refugees.

The court was told today each of the 24 passengers had paid 500,000 Sri Lankan rupee, or $10,000, for the 19-day voyage, while each crew member was to receive 50,000 rupee, or $1,000.

[gazza]

I agree with artie we have a tremendous amount of boat people hitting aussie shores and no let up my nephew is aussie navy and does the northern run all for illegal boaties
every time they are out they bring a boat back in tow these people are quite open to how much they pay any thing from $5000.00 to $10.000 to get to aussie its interesting to see the countrys they come through which are U.N signed nations why dont they stay in those places australia is so open to illegals not only immigrints but drugs and illegal weapons it is about time we took a hard stance on illegals they are putting legal migrants way back in the cue which is not right as these people are doing the right thing to get here dont by any means think im racist as my wifes mother is japanese and i know the pain she went through to get here just after the 2nd world war as a war bride but it was done legally
ever wonder how they get the money to pay for the boat. It is a political hot cake at the moment,and will be so for a while yet

[Bald_dog]

I applaud the Australian PM for making this stand..I would love to see my own country doing the same but thats never gonna happen.

Illegal immigrants are extremely dangerous seeing as they usually destroy any ID so they could be murderers/rapists etc. They could be bringing disease.

Australia kicks ***.

[Duke]

Maybe the Aussies could send some of their troops to Southern California....I think we're being invaded too...