Australia Concerned Over Indonesia’s Immigration Policy

Australia has raised concerns over Indonesian immigration policy to relax country’s immigration laws for the citizens of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Initially, new and easy immigration rules are set to be introduced for the national of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
In the second stage, same relaxed visa rules and regulations will be implemented for the citizens of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Prior to that, the Indonesian immigration authorities included these four countries in the ‘red list’ for a long time, due to concerns about security hazard.

Meanwhile, the flexibility in Indonesia’s immigration regulations for the citizens of the four nations has raised concerns for the Australian immigration authorities.

The Australian boarder security believes that relaxation in immigration regulations could trigger more asylum seekers to Australia; as emerald of the equator has been perfect passageways for the asylum seekers’ seek entry into Australia.
Pakistani and Afghan people have been using Indonesia as a gateway to enter to Australia to seek asylum.

Law and Human Rights Ministry immigration of Indonesia’s Chief, Bambang Irawan asserted that the Australian immigration authorities have raised valid concerns regarding a potential flow of asylum seekers, but all the security issue will be scrutinized and they are ready to cope with the human smuggling and trafficking.

“There’s the potential for the new policy to lure more boat people heading to Australia, however we have an interest in increasing the number of tourists… But we should also be aware of security problems resulting from their entry,” Irawan said in an interview, which published in the Jakarta Post.

The Chief further stated that the Indonesian border authorities have already taken number of precautions to stop human trafficking and they have sufficient regulations to cope up with smuggling.

“Based on our data, they head to Australia. To get there they have to pass our country,” He added.

However, the Indonesian Minister of foreign affairs, Marty Natalegawa claimed that the visa relaxation for the citizen of these four countries will boost tourism in Indonesia, and it will help the country to formulate business relationship with the four nations.

Tags: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Human smuggling, human trafficking, Immigration, Indonesia, Indonesian Immigration, Pakistan, Sri Lanka