In 2005 and 2006, the Australian Government referred to the Commonwealth Ombudsman the cases of 247 people who had been detained by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) and later released on the basis that they could not be detained any longer as an unlawful non-citizen. The Ombudsman’s office agreed to investigate and report to DIAC about each individual’s case under the Ombudsman’s power to conduct an own motion investigation.

For the purposes of analysis, the cases were divided into seven categories on the basis of preliminary information provided by DIAC. This report deals with 70 cases categorised as detention process issues. These cases involved the detention of individuals between 2000 and 2006 when DIAC's decision to detain was often problematic - falling short of the relevant legislative requirements or resulting from a procedural deficiency.

An individual analysis of each of those 70 cases has been provided by the Ombudsman’s office to DIAC, but these will not be published. Instead, the systemic issues concerning immigration administration that arose from the individual investigations relating to detention process issues are addressed in this consolidated public report.