Austral Realm

The Christmas Island detention center has a troubled history of mass rioting and protesting, self-harm and an unexplained death. Most of the detainees are visa-less asylum seekers or deported criminals who had their legal status dismissed. Since 2001, the detention center has been a holding point for refugees seeking entry into Australia. In addition to asylum seekers, there is a large presence of 501s, which are migrants whose visas were either canceled or expired. Australia's Section 501 of the Migration Act allows for the cancellation of a visa for people deemed unfit to enter on the basis of a character test, which is subject largely to interpretation. If a minister has "reasonable suspicion", then the person of scrutiny may be held indefinitely. In recent years, the Australian government has placed emphasis to enforce this clause, which caused the number of people detained under Section 501 to increase exponentially. For many of these migrants, the only hope for contesting a deportation order is to remain in detention until their appeal is accepted. And even that feat seems abysmal when considering the legal and bureaucratic barriers that refugees face when navigating through the Australian immigration system.