Category Statement

Speech delivered by Tamil refugee Rathy Barthlote, Refugee Women Action for Visa Equality and Tamil Refugee Council, at a RAC forum on 3 March 2025

We are refugees—people created by imperialist wars and global power struggles. We are the remnants of your wars, left without a home, without dreams, struggling to survive. We fled persecution, ethnic and religious hatred, and arrived seeking safety, only to find ourselves trapped in limbo.

As Eelam Tamils, our journey has been marked by destruction, displacement, and the loss of our homeland. For generations, we have been forced to live as refugees, stripped of our rights, our dignity, and our place in the world. We were driven out of our ancestral land, subjected to unimaginable suffering, and denied the right to return.

For over 30 years, our people have endured immense pain. The bloodshed and trauma of war still linger in our homeland, leaving behind wounds that refuse to heal.

In 2009, the Sri Lankan state committed genocide against Tamils. As a result, thousands of Eelam Tamils sought refuge in countries like Australia. Even after the war ended, the Sri Lankan state continued its oppression—abducting Tamils under the guise of “investigations,” subjecting them to brutal torture and sexual violence. International human rights organisations, including the UN and the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), have documented these atrocities.

To this day, our missing loved ones remain unaccounted for. Tamil ancestral lands are being taken over and new Buddhist temples are being forcefully established in our homeland to erase our identity. Our way of life is being disrupted, our culture is under attack, and our future generations are being deliberately destroyed through the spread of drugs and systemic oppression.

The same racist government that rules Sri Lanka today is the one that endorsed the massacre of Tamils in 1983 and blocked peace negotiations. They called and supported Rajapaksa’s genocidal actions against Tamils, continue to enforce draconian anti-terror laws against Tamils, re-imprison former political prisoners, and have even created watchlists for Tamil refugees returning from abroad, leading to immediate arrests at the airport. Just last week they banned numerous Tamil rights groups in the diaspora.

Despite knowing all this, Australia—while presenting itself as a defender of refugee rights—has signed international agreements but refuses to grant us protection. For over 12 years, we have been left in limbo, denied permanent residency, and forced to live with uncertainty.

We are mentally and physically exhausted, suffering from extreme stress and trauma. Separated from our loved ones for years, many of us have developed severe mental health conditions. How many more lives must be lost before action is taken? Even today, we have lost another member of our community to this injustice.

What was our crime? Why must our children suffer like this?

With nothing left to lose, 22 refugee women took action in September 2023, marching on foot from Melbourne to Canberra to protest Australia’s anti-refugee policies. This was followed by a 100-day protest, from July to October, where we endured extreme weather conditions, demanding permanent visas. Our protest gained the support of people from different backgrounds, yet we still have not received a solution.

12 years is not just a number—it is a lifetime of living in fear, uncertainty, and oppression. And yet, our future remains a question mark.

We demanded justice and dignity, but all we have received is betrayal. In 2022, the Labour government promised change. They called the “Fast Track” visa system unfair and vowed to abolish it. Yet, today, 9500 refugees remain in limbo. Our lives have not changed—we are still prisoners in this open-air detention.

We have committed no crime. For 12 years, we have been part of this society, contributing to it. But the wounds on our bodies and minds remain deep.

Despite all this, we are not defeated. We are not giving up. We will continue to fight.

Until the government listens to our voices, we will not remain silent. Until they give us a permanent solution, our struggle will continue. We are waiting, but not in silence—not in submission! We will amplify our voices, intensify our resistance, and demand our rights.

This fight is not just ours—it is a struggle between the powerful and the oppressed, between the government and the people, between justice and injustice.

Until permanent visas are granted to all 9500 refugees, we will not stop!

To everyone standing with us today—you are our strength. Your dedication and support fuel our struggle. You understand that when injustice happens to any group of people, it is the responsibility of all to speak out.

We will win our rights. This is our promise, our oath!

Thank you.

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.

14 November 2024

The Refugee Action Collective (Vic) condemns Labor’s harsh, new attempt to demonise asylum-seekers and make deportations easier.

We call on Labor to drop its proposed legislation, introduced in response to the High Court of Australia ruling on 6 November that forcing people released from immigration detention to wear ankle bracelets and live under curfews was unconstitutional.

The government is responding to – and deepening – a racist panic that asylum-seekers who have committed crimes, served their time in prison and have been released into the community are a special threat.

Citizens released from prison can return to their homes and families. Asylum-seekers should have that right, too.

But the proposed legislation goes much further than making it possible to force asylum-seekers to wear ankle bracelets and observe curfews.

It gives the government the power to pay poor, third countries like Nauru to take asylum-seekers, making deportation much easier and effectively expanding offshore detention.

People deported to third countries are not guaranteed permanent residency there. They could be detained or sent to their home country where they would face harm.

The Bill also allows the Minister overturn refugee determinations for virtually all refugees and asylum-seekers in Australia.

This is a threat to all refugees and asylum-seekers, including those who are victims of the flawed “fast track” process or those brought to Australia under the former Medevac legislation.

Labor is enabling a Trump-like response to refugees, whether by them or by a future Dutton government.

It is unnecessary, racist and cruel. This Bill must be withdrawn now. RAC Vic commits itself to campaigning against it.

We call on all refugee supporters to join the Human Rights Day rally on Tuesday 10 December (6pm at the State Library) where we will be demanding permanent visas for all.