Chinese students outnumber others in asylum claims surge
Chinese students vastly outnumber counterparts of other nationalities seeking asylum in Australia as the country faces a recent surge in study visa holders claiming protection following a Labor crackdown on international education.
Visas for Chinese students, the biggest overseas market for Australian universities, are continuing to be approved at much higher rates than other source countries, prompting a former top immigration bureaucrat to urge the government to overhaul the risk-based system as it slashes migration.
Chinese students vastly outnumber counterparts of other nationalities when it comes to protection claims.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
Abul Rizvi, a former Department of Education deputy secretary, said he expected student asylum claims to continue to grow as a result of restrictions on visa-hopping and the Albanese government’s slated student caps to reduce net overseas migration.
There were 357 applications for asylum in May, up from 239 in April and 315 in March.
“What [the visa crackdown] does is narrow their options, so if they want to stay in Australia and don’t have any particular skills, they’re really only left with applying for asylum or going home,” Rizvi said.
Australian National University higher education expert Andrew Norton agreed: “I would not be in the least bit surprised if these numbers did go up.”
Migration is shaping up as a key battlefront in the leadup to the federal election, with Labor and the Coalition adopting tough stances over the number of temporary arrivals.
According to figures provided to this masthead by the Department of Home Affairs, 3555 Chinese students applied for protection in the five years to June, compared to 1788 Malaysians, and 1112 Indian students.
At 261, the monthly average of students seeking asylum between January and May is on track to be the highest since before the pandemic, while May saw the highest numbers of monthly overall asylum applications, 2380, since Australia closed its borders.
The government uses a risk-rating system to process student visa applications. Also known as evidence levels, the ratings are determined by factors such as the number of visa cancellations, refusals and protection applications associated with certain providers and countries.
As student visa approval rates continue to be signed off at record lows, at 79 per cent, Chinese students are bucking the trend, with nearly 94 per cent of applications approved, while just 66 per cent of Indian students are given visas, and 76 per cent of Colombians.
Rizvi questioned why Chinese students were being waved into the country when they were the top nationality making protection claims, the vast majority of which are rejected, at a time when the government has vowed the dramatically limit student numbers.
“You may get some genuine asylum seekers from China,” he said. “But the vast bulk of people coming from China to Australia on student visas are just middle-class people trying to get ahead.”
Refugee Legal executive director David Manne said he represented Chinese nationals who had clear-cut claims for protection from persecution and “in many cases have been successful under rigorous legal assessment by the Australian government”.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil’s office didn’t comment when contacted but provided information that showed protection applications were only given a 10 per cent weighting in the screening of student visa applications. The statement also said that the number of Chinese applications was driven by the size of its student cohort.
In the financial year to June, there were 77,185 visas granted to Chinese students compared to 45,659 to Indian students.
In announcing a suite of measures to overhaul the integrity of the migration system in October last year, O’Neil said there was a problem with baseless asylum claims clogging up the system and taking years to resolve.
“It is clear that in some instances this system is being used as a proxy to get work rights in Australia,” she said during a press conference.
Rizvi said while the government used several measures to limit temporary migration, there were also a record 114,000 people in Australia awaiting protection decisions or who were yet to be removed after their applications were knocked back.
Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said the government’s track record of returning failed asylum seekers was “non-existent”, adding Labor had failed to implement a recommendation in the Nixon review of the migration system that called for all asylum applications to be assisted by agents.
“The grave concern is that this weakness to act will see more and more people seeking asylum here in Australia and the latest proof point is that last month we saw record monthly numbers for the two years of the Albanese government,” he said.
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