Twenty Seven Located in Sydney Operations
Media Release - DPS 71/2003
Twenty people are in immigration detention and a further seven have been granted bridging visas to depart Australia following operations by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) in Western Sydney.
Those detained included: nine men from the People's Republic of China, two women and four men from the Philippines, three men from Indonesia, one man from Tonga and one man from Lebanon.
Eighteen of the group were detained as unlawful non-citizens and the remaining two were detained for working in breach of their visa conditions.
The group was located when compliance officers visited a number of residences across Western Sydney and two building sites at Edensor Park and Greystanes.
All twenty have been transferred to Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre, where arrangements are being made for their removal from Australia, as required by law.
A further seven unlawful non-citizens located during the operation were issued with bridging visas so they could arrange their departure from Australia.
This group comprised one man and one woman from Indonesia, one woman from Tonga, one man from Lebanon, one man from the Russian Federation, one man from Turkey and one man from India.
DIMIA officers, often with assistance from state police, make regular visits to workplaces in many parts of Australia, including restaurants, farms, shops, offices, factories and brothels, in an effort to detect and locate people who are in the country illegally or who are working illegally.
In the 2002-03 financial year the Department located 21,465 people who had overstayed their visas or breached their visa conditions - an increase of more than 20 percent over the 2001-02 financial year when the department located 17,307 overstayers and people breaching visas conditions around Australia.
16 October 2003