Odds in favour of illegal immigrants

THE odds are stacked in favour of unlawful immigrants who want to call Australia home - there is less than one chance in 23 they will be caught.

Of the 58,400 hiding in the community, only 2500 were tracked down in 2010-11, a Herald Sun investigation has found.

And they are arriving faster than they are being caught, with 10,600 more living here now than six years ago, easily outstripping the 4700 refugees in detention.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship declined to tell the Herald Sun how it tracked down unlawful immigrants it did catch, saying the information was "not readily available".

But it acknowledged most unlawful non-citizens handed themselves in and most of the rest were caught only after public "dob-ins".

The Herald Sun last month revealed more than half the foreign citizens living here unlawfully had called Australia home for five or more years - 20,000 for a decade or longer.

The Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria's new chairman, Joe Caputo, said the figures showed the disproportionate amount of resources spent on asylum seekers who arrived by boat.

"It's absurd. It's a huge, huge cost," he said.

"We spend far too much time and resources with a small number of people and yet we have this other huge area that has almost gone unattended."

Mr Caputo said that by taking jobs and housing, using public services without paying tax and often being involved in dubious activities, unlawful immigrants harmed the wider community and sullied the reputation of genuine migrants and refugees.

Many created bogus identities or engaged in criminal activities to survive, and police provided 302 tip-offs to immigration officials in 2010-11. Another 73 tips came from other agencies, such as Centrelink, and 10 from local government.

But most of the 2504 tracked down were found after being dobbed in by family, friends, workmates or concerned citizens.

An Immigration Department spokeswoman said there were 6109 tip-offs from the public about unlawful immigrants in 2010-11.

"The majority of dob-ins are anonymous and ... not all would lead to the department locating an unlawful non-citizen," she said.

The department also received "internal dob-ins" from its officers. In 2010-11, 846 internal dob-ins were received from Immigration staff in Australia, with a further 124 from offshore.

The department spokeswoman declined to say how many tip-offs or "internal dob-ins" led to arrests.

A total of 13,831 unlawful non-citizens returned home in 2010-11, 338 fewer than the previous year.

Of those, 11,327 handed themselves in, usually after short-term visa overstays or minor visa breaches. Most were given bridging visas before making their own way home.

heraldsun 9 Dec 2011

Another policy that works on favour of the Global Slave Trade.

The so called immigration of refugees, is a cover up for importing slave labour into the country officially.

The very criminal act of illegally entering the country makes these 'refugees' criminals.

Also many of the refugees have criminal backgrounds in their native countries, in which they are following in their criminal ways in Australia, thus further endangering our society.

Australian politicians are knowingly importing criminals into the country, do the detriment of the general populous.