Immigration Control in Australia

Like Canada and the United States, Australia has encountered increasing difficulties in regulating international migration movements. Australia's physical isolation and rigorous entry procedures have limited the arrival of undocumented migrants to a trickle. But the number coming as students, visitors, and under other short-term visas who subsequently overstay these visas and apply to change their status to permanent residence while in Australia has increased sharply since the early 1980s. The management of these claims has proved difficult because of judicial leniency and the advocacy of humanitarian and ethnic lobby groups. However, since the late 1980s, the Australian government has introduced a series of tough legislative and administrative measures that appear to have significantly diminished the problem. These measures have been much tougher than those enforced in North America. It is argued that this Australian response can be traced to the heritage of control that has shaped Australia's immigration policies and Australians' conceptions of themselves as a nation.