Within the Australian community a relatively small number of refugees and people seeking asylum have been living in precarious visa situations for lengthy periods, many for more than a decade. Various factors create this situation including policy and administrative inertia, and cases in which the usual requirements for formal decision-making have not been met, providing no avenue for resolution of visa status. 

Prolonged visa insecurity creates a sub-class of people in communities and has negative impacts on individuals and families, including risk of exploitation. Prolonged visa insecurity also creates significant costs to government. 

Adopting a policy to enable the regularisation of visa status in certain circumstances would significantly improve the lives of people affected, provide benefits to the Australian community, and help to relieve unnecessary administrative pressure on Australia’s visa processing system. Regularisation is a procedure whereby refugees and people seeking asylum are awarded a legal status in their host state. It means that a person can obtain a residence status from a relevant government authority authorising – ‘regularising’ – their stay in the country where they live. 

This policy response is not new to Australia. It has been used by past Australian governments, and has been implemented successfully in many European countries. In the first instance, it is recommended that a regularisation process be applied to people seeking asylum and refugees whose visa status has not been conclusively determined within five years of their arrival in Australia, or where their protection decision was determined without adequate access to a fair and thorough process. This would recognise the strong social connections and economic contributions of people who have lived in Australia for years, and alleviate the social and political problems associated with prolonged visa insecurity.