Border Force officials apologise for botched visa crackdown in Melbourne
|
Version 0 of 1. Related: Table in PM's suite smashed at farewell party under scrutiny in estimates – politics live Senior officials have apologised for a botched police and immigration department visa crackdown in Melbourne earlier this year, but have strongly denied the operation relied on racially profiling suspected visa overstayers. Operation Fortitude, slated for Melbourne in late August, was cancelled after public outrage over a press release that intimated that Australian Border Force staff would be conducting on-the-spot visa checks. More than 200 took to the streets of Melbourne to protest against the operation, labelling the agency conducting it “border farce”. Related: 'We shut them up': Melbourne celebrates border force backdown The secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, which oversees Border Force, Michael Pezzullo, and commissioner of the force, Roman Quaedvlieg, apologised for the debacle during a Senate estimates grilling on Monday. A “badly worded press release” was “inappropriate and imprudent”, Pezzullo said, and gave the impression that Border Force could stop people and request they produce valid visas. “It does not,” he said. “There are no general powers of questioning.” The force can investigate a person’s visa and citizenship status if it is referred by an appropriate agency like police but only if the agency has a reasonable suspicion there is a problem. Border Force can not select people for investigation. Pezzullo said the buck stopped with himself and Quaedvlieg, as the heads of the force and the department. “I don’t want to leave this committee with any impression that any officers have been thrown under a bus,” he said. “We are in the end accountable for this regrettable event.” The Australian Border Force media statement was “factually wrong” in implying that Border Force staff could stop and question people on the status of their visa, Quaedvlieg said. “This resulted in public concern, confusion and distress, and for that I apologise.” The press release came from Border Force and was not shown to Victorian police, who led the operation. “The unilateral press release ... was not run by Victorian police,” Pezzullo said. The botched execution of the operation led to an internal review. Several department staff members were formally counselled as a result. “[Border Force] aren’t just simply roaming the streets, checking people’s papers, and that could have been explained better at the point of content,” Pezzullo said. “We expect all of our processes and procedures to run smoothly,” he continued, adding that the press release was a regrettable lapse in otherwise “exemplary” body of work by Border Force staff. Victorian police spearheaded the operation, which Quaedvlieg called routine, to ensure the safety of passengers on Melbourne’s public transport system. Six officers from Border Force were to be stationed at taxi ranks at Flinders Street and Southern Cross stations across the two nights of the operation. Their main role was to check on the visa status of taxi drivers referred from the lead agency, Victorian police, who were also in the two locations. Quaedvlieg defended the operation’s location, saying that “crime rates at taxi ranks, particularly of an evening, are inordinately high”. But Pezzullo strongly rejected suggestions that suspects were questioned based on the colour of their skin. “We certainly don’t rely on racial profiling at all,” he said. “It would be a slippery slope to start to assume that people are a non-citizen.” He referred to his Italian background, saying he would be “greatly offended if people started to ask me about my lawful status in this country”. Border Force has undertaken 308 joint operations with police and other agencies, similar to Operation Fortitude, in 2015. In the 2014-15 financial year, Border Force detected 2,661 people working without a valid visa. In 2015 to date, 627 have been caught , the deputy commissioner of Australian Border Force, Michael Outram, said. |