In short:
The home affairs minister has assured Australians that a push to detain visa overstayers will not lead to ICE-style immigration raids.
asserted
push → assure → raids
Immigration experts say detaining visa overstayers was an ordinary part of the immigration system until 2015, when facilities were prioritised for criminals awaiting deportation.
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facilities → say → deportation
An expanded Border Force team of 100 officials and 250 new beds will work to detain overstayers or encourage them to leave.
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team → expand → them
A 100-strong Border Force team being established to remove 77,000 visa overstayers will not bring ICE-style immigration raids seen in the United States to Australia, the home affairs minister has assured.
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minister → establish → Australia
Tens of thousands of visa overstayers have remained in Australia in part because they are not being detained, and so there is little incentive to leave, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke explained at a National Press Club address yesterday.
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Burke → remain → address
In an effort to encourage people to leave of their own accord, the government will create 250 beds where overstayers can be held for deportation, investigating the possible repurposing of buildings like the former quarantine facility in Melbourne as detention centres.
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overstayers → encourage → centres
Mr Burke said when faced with the choice between detention and leaving of their own accord, most visa overstayers would leave.
"Before 2015, we had a routine process in Australia for overstayers where, when people had overstayed a visa, we would bring people in to detention centres … and within a few weeks they would organise their own flight and leave," Mr Burke said.
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Burke → say → flight
"And effectively that didn't just affect them, it had a behavioural impact where a whole lot of other people who were overstaying thought, 'Yeah, yeah, it's better that I just get on a plane and leave.'
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I → affect → plane
"Effectively, what we are going back to doing is simply being able to make sure that if you overstay, you will not be able to say: 'Well there's no consequences, as if they're ever going to make sure that I leave.
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I → go → what
"This is not the sort of operation that some people have seen on TV happening in other countries.
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people → see → countries
Despite his reassurance, the Greens were quick to claim the government's expansion of Australia's immigration detention network was a "reheating" of former prime minister Tony Abbott's immigration policies.
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expansion → claim → policies
"Labor's new immigration jails will be run by the same exploitative US private prison multinational that is already abusing people's rights in immigration detention here," Greens senator David Shoebridge said.
"
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Shoebridge → run → detention
If the minister doesn't want these policies to be compared to ICE, he should not behave like ICE.
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he → want → ICE
Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has relaxed qualifications required to join the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, boosted its funding, expanded the country's detention centre network and shifted to more aggressive tactics to detain people, including removing restrictions on enforcement at schools, churches and in courthouses.
The changes have raised human rights concerns, accusations of racial profiling in ICE operations and high profile cases of fatal shootings by ICE officers.
Migration Institute of Australia chief executive Peter van Vliet said resourcing Border Force to detain visa overstayers would not lead to ICE-style tactics.
"
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resourcing → return → tactics
I think that's a complete overstatement of what's been planned, we had this arrangement in place before 2015, it was a fairly soft approach …
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it → think → 2015
it was fairly carefully targeted, it was uncontroversial," Mr van Vliet said.
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Vliet → target → ?
"It's just something that has basically stopped."
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that → stop → ?
Detention centres filled after mandatory visa cancellations of criminals
Mr van Vliet said since 2015, detention centres had lost the capacity to hold visa overstayers, after laws passed by the former Abbott government forced the mandatory cancellation of visas of some criminals.
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laws → fill → criminals
That cohort has continued to occupy Australian detention centres as they lodge appeals to their removal, going through legal processes that can sometimes take years to resolve.
It also limited options to detain non-criminal "unlawful non-citizens" because of the safety risk of holding them in the same facilities as violent criminals.
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It → continue → criminals
"It flooded the detention centres in Australia with people who have been convicted of a crime and come out of jail after serving a sentence, and the whole nature of immigration detention changed, there was simply no more beds for visa overstayers," he said.
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he → flood → overstayers
"The government has not been paying an awful lot of attention to [visa overstayers] until today."
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government → pay → today
According to the most recent Home Affairs migration trends report, there were 6,646 departures in the 2024-25 financial year, with about half being voluntary returns and half being removals after detention.
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half → accord → detention
A little over a third had arrived on a visitor visa, while about 20 per cent had arrived on a student visa.
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cent → arrive → visa
And that cohort has slowly grown since 2016 from about 64,000 visa overstayers to more than 77,000 today.
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cohort → grow → 77,000
Mr Burke said the additional migration enforcement staff and separate facilities for overstayers would restore the capacity to detain overstayers, and ultimate encourage others to leave.
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staff → say → others
Former Immigration Department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi said he doubted the full cohort of 77,000 overstayers could be removed based on today's announcements, though he expected it could help to remove or cause the departure of another 5,000 to 10,000 people a year.
But he said the changes were sensible, and that the drop-off in compliance activity after 2015 had been a "mistake".
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off → say → 2015
"To return to the policy that existed before 2015 is a good thing," Mr Rizvi said.
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Rizvi → return → 2015
He added that those pre-2015 operations were not conducted at all like ICE operations, with officers visiting in "white shirts, with ties, a name badge and no gun", and only entered a workplace by invitation or with a warrant.
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officers → add → warrant
"They were a very different operation to what we see in the United States," he said.
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he → see → States
Mr van Vliet said he was confident that enforcement would not be "gangs of men in four-wheel-drives going after people who might look a bit different".
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who → say → people
"It would be three or four officers who would visit somebody and say, 'Look, your visa has run out, you either need to make arrangements to go home or we will detain you,' a sort of soft approach," he said.
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he → visit → approach
"It's nothing like some of the abusive examples we have seen in other countries, where are people are sort of hauled off the street …
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people → see → street
as long as human rights are respected it is fine.
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it → respect → ?
"Getting some sort of immigration compliance system back into the mix for visa overstayers, who don't have protection claims, they're not in danger going home, they just overstayed their visa and it is time for them to return to their country of origin, it's perfectly reasonable that you have a little bit of a stick to get them to move on."
In a statement, the Human Rights Law Centre claimed the changes would punish workers vulnerable to exploitation, since it would make undocumented workers less likely to speak up.
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workers → get → exploitation
"Undocumented migrants who have been exploited at work should be protected to take action against their employers.
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who → exploit → employers
Instead of needlessly expanding the punitive immigration detention network, the Albanese government should invest in protections for migrant workers to ensure that all workers have safety and dignity at work," legal director Sanmati Verma said.
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Verma → expand → work
Visa overstayers not the key cohort keeping 'NOM' high
Net overseas migration is falling, with 292,000 net arrivals over the year to March 2026, but that remains well above the federal government's target of 225,000 net arrivals by 2028.
Yesterday, Mr Burke said he already had the tools to reach that target, vowing it would be met even without the changes he announced.
But the home affairs minister said it would allow him to more precisely target the mix of people coming and going from Australia to minimise economic pain caused by migration cuts.
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him → keep → cuts
While fewer people overall have been arriving in Australia, the rate of people leaving has remained flat.
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rate → arrive → people
While there is a cohort of about 77,000 people without a valid visa remaining in Australia, a much larger number of people have remained in Australia on bridging visas — temporary visas issued allowing a person to remain in Australia lawfully while their visa application or appeals to a decision are resolved.
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application → be → decision
The number of people on bridging visas has more than doubled from 176,000 three years ago to more than 200,000 today, many of those being international students challenging a decision to refuse a new visa application they have lodged.
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they → bridge → application
…and 1 more, not listed.
The Aporia
