Australia to speed up third country deportation of criminal non-citizens

Australia is expected to pass a law on Thursday making it easier to deport non-citizens to third countries, reviving criticism from immigration activist groups that it was "dumping" so-called refugees in small island states.

As the United States seeks Pacific Island nations willing to accept deported non-citizens, Australia last Friday signed a deal with Nauru to resettle hundreds of people who have been denied refugee visas because of criminal convictions.

The planned new law removes procedural fairness when Australia deports a non-citizen to a third country and is designed to limit court appeals, said the government. It is expected to pass in Australia's parliament after the opposition Liberal Party said it would support the move.

Australia will pay an upfront AU$400 million to establish an endowment fund for the resettlement scheme, plus AU$70 million a year in costs, Nauruan President David Adeang said in a budget speech last Friday.

Two-thirds of Nauru's revenue last year, or AU$200 million ($130 million), came from hosting an Australian-funded processing centre for asylum seekers.

Nauru, which has a population of 12,000 and a land area of just 21 square km (eight square miles), is reliant on foreign aid, and faces a 2025 deadline to repay Taiwan AU$43 million ($27.94 million) after switching diplomatic ties to Beijing, according to budget documents.

Under a decade-old policy to discourage people smuggling, Australia sends "asylum seekers" who arrive by boat to offshore detention centres to have refugee claims assessed, denying them Australian visas.

The new Nauru resettlement scheme will cover a different group, whose visas were cancelled by Australia because they served prison sentences or were refused visas on character grounds, and cannot return to countries including Iran, Myanmar and Iraq because of "the risk of persecution".

Australia's High Court ruled in 2023 that indefinite immigration detention was unlawful, resulting in around 350 non-citizens being released into the community, with a third subject to electronic monitoring.

One of this group, a 65-year-old Iraqi man, lost a High Court appeal against deportation to Nauru on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry)