Australian immigration meets refugee targets
September 02 2009 by Matt Jones
Chris Evans: Australia immigration meets target
Australian immigration has met its yearly target for accepting refugees into the country
13,507 refugees have been granted an Australia visa in the year 2008/09. This comfortably meets the target of 13,500 that was set the year previously. The target of 13,500 was an increase of 500 from the year before and the target has been raised again for next year up to 13,750.
Australian immigration Minister Chris Evans says that Australia will continue to be a world leader in humanitarian efforts to help refugees.
He said: “Our ongoing efforts to help vulnerable populations are a clear demonstration of our nation's compassion for those in need.”
The stream of Iraqi refugees continues to be high and the majority of the refugees that came to Australia were from Iraq, with 2874 Australian visas being granted to Iraqis.
The second highest country producing refugees for Australia is Burma. Many of these refugees had been living on the Thai-Burmese border for over 20 years. The women and children were considered to be the most vulnerable and so were seen too first. All too often the children had known no other life than that of their refugee camp.
Other groups of refugees came from counties such as Afghanistan, Liberia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, The Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone along with 1483 refugees from other countries.
There were 2497 Australia visas granted to refugees who already managed to move to Australia via the onshore program and the other 11,010 refugees arrived via the off-shore immigration program.
Despite Australia’s efforts, the number of refugees seeking asylum continues to increase.
See the latest Immigration News
