RAC Vic condemns Trump’s attacks on refugees and migrants
Albanese: repeal Labor’s deportation laws – permanent visas now!
Refugee Action Collective Victoria condemns US state-sanctioned attacks on migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers since Donald Trump’s return to office in January.
Trump’s re-election marks a dangerous shift to the far right in the US, fuelling racist attacks on migrants worldwide, including in Australia. Trump’s victory has empowered Peter Dutton while Albanese remains silent.
Only recently Labor Immigration Minister Tony Burke passed his own draconian Trump-inspired laws which expand offshore detention and make it easier to cancel visas and deport refugees to danger.
Trump’s presidential campaign centred on mass deportations, capitalising on voter frustration with stagnant wages, living conditions and anger at Democrat elites. He channelled this anger into racist rhetoric, falsely portraying undocumented migrants as criminals, murderers, and terrorists.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed ten executive orders on immigration, giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expanded powers to detain and launch a nationwide crackdown. In recent weeks, ICE has raided schools, homes, and neighbourhoods, arresting thousands, with agents reportedly targeting 1200-1400 arrests a day.
Trump froze all federal funding for refugee programs, leading to hundreds of staff layoffs and threatening benefits for thousands of refugees. He also blocked the US foreign aid budget, though a court has temporarily overruled him.
Trump’s cruelty to refugees and plans for mass deportation replicate Australia’s racist policies on a much larger scale.
Trump wants to use Guantánamo Bay to detain and deport 30,000 migrants. Since 2013 Australian Governments have detained thousands of refugees who arrived by boat on Manus Island and Nauru – its very own torture camps. Today dozens remain on Nauru. 14,000 languish in Indonesia, banned from resettling in Australia since 2014.
A US military jet recently deported a planeload of migrants to Panama, with more deportations to follow. After a tense standoff with Trump and US threats of tariffs, Colombia agreed to accept US deportation flights. Trump is currently negotiating with El Salvador to deport migrants from countries refusing to accept US deportations.
But Labor’s new laws brought in before Trump became President gives the Australian Government similar draconian powers to deport refugees and migrants to various foreign countries. There is nothing to stop these “third countries” transferring refugees back to their country of origin, where they may face persecution or death.
From anti-deportation rapid response groups to large rallies that have shut down freeways, Trump’s attacks have been met with a storm of local anti-racist resistance around the country. RAC sends its solidarity and strength to the refugees, migrants and anti-racist activists resisting ICE’s implementation of Trump’s agenda.
While Australia’s racism to refugees has had a long and bipartisan history, the history of grassroots opposition and resistance has been equally long, determined and fierce.
Former Liberal PM Scott Morrison – who once bragged about his cruel boat turnbacks by giving himself a statue saying “I stopped these” – was forced by a powerful mass movement to release all children from detention, medically evacuate seriously ill refugees onshore and later to release these same refugees from their hotel prisons into the community. These refugees are among those continuing to resist under Albanese – demanding permanent visas now!
The election of Trump signals the importance of continuing to build and deepen the struggle for refugees and migrants on the streets and in our communities. History shows that a powerful broad, mass social movement on the streets can win freedom and rights for refugees, even under the most racist and rightwing of Governments.
However, history also shows that going quiet for the “lesser evil” can effectively demobilise the kind of movement needed. Labor’s new anti-refugee laws shift the debate domestically towards Trumpism and help pave the path for a future Dutton victory at the next or subsequent federal election. They also fly in the face of general support for refugees within the general population, trade union movement and among Labor’s own shrinking electoral base.
The extent to which the refugee movement in Australia is able to mobilise and challenge Albanese’s cruelty to refugees NOW while he is in power, the better equipped we will be to fight the racism of whoever wins at the upcoming election.
We look to the anti-racist struggle of ordinary people in the US for inspiration.
To find out more, join RAC Vic, RAC Sydney and RAC Queensland at our upcoming forum on Labor’s deportation laws shame. Monday March 3, 6:30pm. In person at the Kathleen Syme Library, Carlton, or online.