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Operation Sovereign Borders Essay

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Operation Sovereign Borders
The detention of asylum seekers on offshore islands has becomes central to Australia’s border security program (Dickson, 2015). The offshore detention, processing and resettlement regime branded the ‘Pacific Solution’ was terminated in 2008; it was reconfigured and resurrected in 2013 (Larkin, 2017). Manus Island and Nauru were closed in 2008 by the Australian Labour government, bringing an end to the ‘Pacific Solution,’ the centres were once again used in 2012 to house asylum seekers by the same government that ended the practice years before (Dickson, 2015). The next year, in 2013, the Australian Coalition government made Australia’s asylum policy even sterner, with ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, which placed all the control of asylum operations in the hands …show more content…

The Coalition government declared that there was a ‘national emergency’ on Australia’s borders, in turn demanding a direct response to this ‘issue’ through a disciplined, focused and targeted military operation (Dickson, 2015). Thus, ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ emerged with its primary objective being ‘to stop the boats’ (Dickson. 2015). This new policy involved the military interception of ‘unauthorized maritime arrivals,’ thus sending the individuals found on the boats directly to Manus Island and Nauru (Fraenkel, 2016). From the inauguration of this revamped policy, no matter where an asylum seeker arrived from by boat, they were subject to transfer to either Manus Island or Nauru (Grewcock, 2014). The purpose of this policy was to ensure the removal of all boat arrivals attempting to breach Australia and in turn any possibility of resettlement for the asylum seekers in the nation (Grewcock, 2014). Thus, those accepted as genuine refugees would be permanently resettled in either Papua New Guinea, or Nauru, although the government of Nauru held that it would not be granting refugees

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