Illegal immigrant - correct terminology
Letter to the Editor -The Australian Press Council
28 June 2004
Dear Professor McKinnon
I am writing to you in regard to Australian Press Council Guideline No 262 and Adjudication number 1242.
Your advice to media, specifically your adjudication in relation to a complaint against the Sydney Morning Herald, on "the terminology that is applied, and ought to be applied, to those arriving in Australia who do not have normal immigrant credentials" does not reflect reality.
You wrote: "In this instance, the paper acknowledged that 'illegal immigrants' was an incorrect description of the asylum seekers and conceded that it should have used its preferred term 'asylum seekers'".
The presumption relied on in the complaint and on which the adjudication appears to be based is false. It is not true that an asylum seeker cannot be an illegal entrant or indeed be an illegal immigrant. Nor is it pejorative to use the correct terms to describe an illegal entrant or illegal immigrant.
The sensitivity in some quarters to the use of the words 'illegal' or 'unlawful' or 'unauthorised' to describe asylum seekers arriving without Australia's permission seems to have at its root vigorous attempts by some in the community to mislead the public into believing a myth that all unauthorised arrivals are asylum seekers and that all asylum seekers have a right to enter a country of choice without authority and therefore 'can never be illegal'. This is just not true. The reality is clear in international law and has been made crystal clear by the High Court of Australia.
The facts are:
- Neither asylum seekers, nor refugees have a right to enter, without authority, a country which is not their country of nationality.
- The use of the word 'illegal' or 'unlawful' to describe asylum seekers entering a country without authority is standard international practice, not least by signatory states to the Refugees Convention. This is because the Refugees Convention (Article 31) explicitly refers to the "illegal entry or presence" of refugees who arrive in the territory of a country "without authorisation".
Accordingly, describing a person as an illegal, unauthorised or unlawful arrival, or their presence as illegal, unlawful or unauthorised is doing no more than using the correct objective descriptions. As reflected in the Refugees Convention, these are the appropriate terms even where a person is found to be a refugee.
The term 'asylum seeker' is not an alternative to the above terms. The term 'asylum seeker' is used widely by Refugees Convention signatory countries to identify people awaiting a determination on claims for refugee protection. Asylum seekers who have received such a determination and are recognised as being refugees are referred to as 'refugees'.
A person whose asylum claims have been decided and who is not a refugee may still want to stay in a country, but they are not refugees. For such people, it is incorrect and misleading to suggest, through continued use of the term 'asylum seeker', that the reason for their continued wish to stay has anything to do with an unresolved claim to need asylum.
Similarly it is incorrect and misleading to use 'asylum seeker' as a general term to describe all persons who enter a country illegally. People enter illegally for a range of reasons, and in Australia as in other countries many never seek asylum.
It is particularly misleading to use the term 'asylum seeker' to describe the woman and her children who were the subject of the article complained about.
These people:
- Entered Australia illegally (according to the Refugees Convention terminology)
- Had their asylum claims finally determined at review (and refused) in 2001, with the High Court of Australia dismissing the final challenge mounted to these refusal decisions in 2003.
- Had thus long since been found not to be refugees and had long since ceased to be asylum seekers by the time of the 2004 newspaper article in question.
- Still wanted to stay in Australia, notwithstanding that they had no refugee-related ground for staying.
In the circumstances, it is difficult to conceive of a term which could describe them in a more factual, informative and appropriate way than "illegal immigrant".
Yours faithfully
Stewart Foster
Director
Public Affairs
DIMIA