Christmas Island reaches asylum capacity

Published: April 2, 2010 at 9:53 AM

CANBERRA, Australia, April 2 (UPI) -- Australia's Christmas Island detention facilities for asylum seekers will exceed capacity this weekend with the arrival of 140 people from boats intercepted last month.

The center at Flying Fish Cove has an official capacity of 2,040 but will have more than 2,050 people with the latest arrivals, a report in The Australian newspaper said.

The 5 square-mile Australian territory is in the Indian Ocean about 1,600 miles northwest of the western Australian city of Perth and 310 miles south of Jakarta, Indonesia.

Capacity at the detention center was pushed to the limit this past week when a boat with 41 people slipped though Australia's border security and announced its arrival on the islands by making a telephone call to the police. It was also the second time in a week that authorities had been alerted to an arrival by a phone call, The Australian said.

The Christmas Island facility has taken in many more people than its current number because the government periodically flies groups of inmates to centers on others islands and the mainland.

More than 50 people were taken in one charter flight to the mainland this week, a spokesman from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship said. Most of the people on the plane had been granted visas but 12 Indonesians were being sent into detention in Darwin in preparation for court appearances or repatriation.

Sydney also took in a planeload of people from Christmas Island this week, a report in the city's Daily Telegraph newspaper said. Nearly 90 asylum seekers were shipped in.

In the city of Brisbane, an Immigration Department spokesman said the city's detention center has 49 detainees in family groups. But another 28 "unaccompanied minors" were being cared for at a four-star motel. The Daily Telegraph showed a picture of a group of Afghani and Kurdish asylum seekers on a shopping trip to a suburban mall.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the Labor Party government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has shown no resolve to address asylum seeker issues.

"Interception I don't think is the word for what's going on up there. It's basically becoming a bit of a taxi service, a revolving door. They've got to get people off to get people on," Morrison said.

He said four boats arrived in the past seven days with 160 people on board. This makes the number of arrivals to Australia since the November 2007 election 4,450 asylum-seekers and 230 crew.

Overall it has cost taxpayers more than $4.6 million. Each additional person on Christmas Island costs $75,000 to process and accommodate, making the exercise "an expensive failure," Morrison said.

The Christmas Island detention center has also caused concerns for the islands 1,500 permanent inhabitants. They claim that that the 400 or more immigration officials from the mainland have been good for their small businesses such as restaurants. But mainlanders' demand for goods and services has also driven up the price of everything, including houses.

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