Palmer report does not uncover DIMIA's florishing 'dob-in culture'

Project SafeCom Inc.
P.O. Box 364
Narrogin
Western Australia 6312
Phone: 0417 090 130
Web: https://www.safecom.org.au/

Palmer report does not uncover DIMIA's florishing 'dob-in culture'

Media Release
Friday July 15 2005 12:30am WST
For Immediate Release
No Embargoes

"Mr Mick Palmer's 'Inquiry into the circumstances of the Immigration Detention of Cornelia Rau' does not deal with the "dob-in" culture where Australians can dob in a suspected "illegal immigrant" - and this may well have been the main trigger that resulted in the unlawful deportation of Ms Vivian Alvarez (Solon)", WA refugee group Project SafeCom suggested this morning.

"In DIMIA, the department where especially the Compliance Branch, also as confirmed by Mick Palmer, runs its unchecked empire, making major decisions about the life in Australia of residents and people staying in the country on other visas, it is highly likely that the "culture of dob-ins" has been running rampant, without being subject to rigorous scrutiny and cross-checks and balances."

"Ms Alvarez had more than one man as a partner in the time of her last period in Australia, and it should be regarded as highly probable that one of these former partners may well be a man who had at the time nothing to loose and everything to gain by making a phone call to the Department of Immigration and alleging that she was an illegal immigrant, thus triggering a process where the Department has clung to the notion she was an illegal entrant who should be deported."

"Refugee advocates and migration agents, amongst them Ms Marion Lê in Canberra, have long had not just suspicions but also evidence that dob-ins are at the background of unexplainable blockages in the otherwise credible cases, also of refugee claimants." (below: an extract from Ms Lê's Address to the Sydney Institute)

"Ms Alvarez may well have been deported because an anonymous do-in was more attractive to the cowboys in DIMIA's Compliance Branch than the arduous work of checking and cross-checking whether or not the dob-in could hold ground against other evidence. The fact that her records, including the evidence that she was indeed an Australian resident, was accessed as soon as three days ago after her deportation by DIMIA staff - also reported by ABC Lateline yesterday - gives also credence to the fact that a cover-up was created and maintained: it may have been based on a dob-in."

For more information:

Marion Lê
Migration Agent, Canberra
[phone number posted]

Jack H Smit
Project SafeCom Inc.
[phone number posted]

Advancing the asylum-seeker cause - a case for pragmatism

Adresss to The Sydney Institute
by Marion Lê
Tuesday 5 October 2004

From https://www.safecom.org.au//marion-le-sydney-institute.htm

Poor Ali Bakhtiari was dobbed in. He was dobbed in, along with another person who became my client. The men were said to be brothers, Pakistani citizens rather than Afghani, guilty of giving false details of their families and nationalities to the DIMIA. I went all the way to the Afghanistan to prove that my client was who he said he was and I proved it. We have not, however, yet been able to find the identity of the dob-in. It's very complicated so just take it from me.

Dob-ins generally have nothing to do with terrorism but are often based on gossip - asylum seekers married to someone or not married to someone - very trivial stuff in fact, but untested and unrevealed can lead to people being detained and removed from Australia.

With the Afghani case-load, the DIMIA put a lot of faith in the now largely discredited language tests and dob-ins which led to many genuine Afghani asylum seekers being detained on suspicion of being Pakistani for four years before eventually being released on temporary three year protection visas (TPVs).[7]

Documents on one DIMIA file indicate that a number of unnamed informants have told the Department that the applicant is lying about his identity. While some informants, however, had apparently given similar information there were apparent inconsistencies. The Refugee Review Tribunal requested, from the DIMIA, details of the sources of these dob-ins but was advised that DIMIA is "under strict obligation to keep the identities of persons who are the sources in these circumstances completely confidential". Isn't that incredible?

There was another dob-in case of a young couple in Adelaide. Theirs is a very sad story. They fled to Australia from the Milosovic ethnic cleansing in 1999. They were terribly traumatised, came here and they are much loved by the local community who have supported them during the time they have had no work permits - over two years whilst they waited for an answer to their request for Ministerial intervention.

Someone dobbed them in. We didn't know this and we couldn't work out why Philip Ruddock would not intervene in this case. He kept saying to me, "I know you've put another letter in about that case but there's an allegation on the file". We put in another request for files under the Freedom of Information legislation (FOI). I've had a separate case on foot for the little girl in the family, so I decided to wait.

Then, back it came, an unanswered, unexplored dob-in, not a letter, but a file note recording that on a particular day a man who identified himself only by his first name and who left a mobile telephone number, walked into the office of the DIMIA in Sydney and said that Mrs A in South Australia (she's never been to Sydney) is living under a false name with her husband, and that a woman called Mrs B who is living with them is in reality her mother. Mrs B also had an application before the Tribunal. This information was passed to the Minister as fact. They were accused of very serious immigration fraud. They had, in other words, adopted false names, and were living with a woman who is supposed to be the mother of the wife who is also lying to the DIMIA and Tribunal.

These are very, very serious allegations which one would imagine would lead to immediate investigations being undertaken. Those allegations had been there for over two years. It has stopped those people accessing ministerial attention because the allegations went, as fact, to the Minister. If you saw the file note, you'd be horrified at such hearsay.

I rang my client and asked if she knew Mrs B? She thought for a few seconds and then said, "Oh wait a minute, about a year and a half ago she stayed with us for a couple of weeks because she had nowhere to go. She's a psychiatrist." It took my client two days to locate Mrs B and I spoke to her on the phone. I also spoke to the person with whom she now boards - a retired Correctional Services Officer who was absolutely furious at the accusations. Mrs B was able to substantiate her identity and proved the allegations to be totally untrue. But there has been no apology from the DIMIA and probably no retraction on advice to the Minister. Those dob-ins are deciding who's coming to this country. That's just one example and there are many others.

This couple and Mrs B were anonymously dobbed in and there was not a basis of truth to the dob-ins. So when John Howard said, "We will decide who is coming here...", it's not so when we have dob-ins allowed to influence a person's right to stay. A man walked into the DIMIA office, didn't even give his full name, didn't give an address, gave a mobile number which they couldn't connect with later, and wrecked a family's life.

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