Fast-track refugee visas
By Terry Plane
The Australian
09feb02
WOOMERA detainees' claims for asylum have been processed at a record rate this week, which has led to the release of 27 people on temporary protection visas, while five unaccompanied children have gone to foster homes.
It is understood about 160 of the 679 detainees remaining at Woomera have been interviewed this week by migration agents and immigration officers.
A senior migration agent told The Australian the maximum number of applications previously processed in a week had been about 90.
The more rapid processing followed the intervention of Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's Immigration Detention Advisory Group, which last week negotiated settlement of a prolonged hunger strike at Woomera in return for the resumption of asylum application processing, suspended for almost two months.
Processing resumed simultaneously with the end of the hunger strike and this week the Immigration Department had extra staff in Woomera to handle the applications.
The unaccompanied children released have been placed in foster care in South Australia by the state's Human Services Department. Another five remain in Woomera, along with 173 others who are with either parents or other relatives.
The issue of unaccompanied children was a special focus of two IDAG members who paid a return visit to Woomera yesterday and Thursday.
Acting chairman Ray Funnell and member Paris Aristotle also met long-term detainees and representatives of the Iraqi and Iranian groups in the centre, as well as reassuring Afghan delegates the hunger strike- settlement arrangements were holding firm and leading to decisions on asylum visas.
Air Marshal Funnell said IDAG was scheduled to meet Mr Ruddock again on February 22.