Iranian refugee finally home in Australia after first being refused entry under travel ban

An Iranian refugee under Australia’s protection has managed to return home to Melbourne after initially being caught up in Australia’s ban on non-citizens entering the country, and forcibly sent back to Europe where he potentially faced refoulement.

Amir is a refugee from Iran and lives in Melbourne on a safe haven enterprise visa.

A political dissident in his home country, Australia has formally recognised he has a “well-founded fear of persecution” in Iran, and he cannot be returned there.

Early this year, Amir sought permission from the Department of Home Affairs to travel to Istanbul to meet with his mother, as he has done previously. He flew to Turkey in early February.

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But when the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the world, Amir cut short his trip and boarded a flight back to Australia.

However, as he travelled back, Australia’s ban on foreign nationals entering the country was announced and came into force. Only citizens and those holding permanent residency could enter.

In Indonesia, despite holding valid travel documents, Amir was refused permission to board his flight home, and was forcibly put on a plane back from where he’d flown – Amsterdam – with the threat he would be sent further back to Moscow and Istanbul.

There were fears too, that his refugee status might not be honoured in Moscow, and he could be refouled to Iran, in breach of international law.

Refugee advocates feared a repeat of the Hakeem al-Araibi case, which left a refugee wrongly detained in a Thai prison after a series of bureaucratic bungles over his visa status.

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However, after intervention from Amir’s local MP, Labor member for Wills Peter Khalil, representations by the UNHCR and Australia’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Amir was granted permission to stay in transit at Amsterdam airport while an exemption was sought from the Australian government to allow him to travel home.

The exemption was initially refused by the Australian Border Force but after intervention by the acting immigration minister, Alan Tudge, the exemption was granted, allowing Amir to fly to Melbourne after days spent in an uncertain limbo in a foreign airport.

He is currently in a Melbourne hotel, as part of a 14-day quarantine for all international arrivals into the country.

“We are in unprecedented times,” Khalil told the Guardian, “and dealing with extraordinary bureaucratic complications. The travel rules and restrictions that were put out have affected thousands of people and Amir was caught up with that.

“But he is under Australia’s protection, and there were real fears for what might happen to him. But working cooperatively, we were able to get through the bureaucratic entanglements to get Amir home.”

The Guardian is aware of a number of other cases of family members of Australian protection visa holders who are seeking exemptions from the travel ban in order to be able to rejoin family in Australia.