Travel Bans and Crimmigration: A New Front for Australia

Description

A new front in crimmigration practice has opened in Australia to (perhaps unexpected) broad national and international condemnation. The merging of criminal and immigration laws to target citizens and permanent residents, under the auspices of a COVID-19 emergency response, has brought the government under intense scrutiny in a way that the implementation of other crimmigration practices during the pandemic have been unable to generate.

In response to the devastating scenes of catastrophe as India battles a second wave of coronavirus infections, the Australian Government announced an emergency declaration on 30 April 2021 that all travellers returning from India, including Australian citizens and permanent residents, would face thousands of dollars in fines and up to 5 years imprisonment. A legal challenge to this measure was recently defeated in the Federal Court of Australia but a constitutional challenge may go ahead.