Government not repatriating ISIS brides from Syria
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has rejected allegations that he helped so-called ISIS brides return to Australia, saying the federal government had failed to repatriate 34 women and children linked to the Islamic State.
The Albanian government has taken a tough stance against the group of Australian women and children trying to leave the Roj camp in north-east Syria. But they were issued Australian passports, which the government said was a legal requirement.
“I can assure you that this process has been a bureaucratic process of officials following the law and doing what they are legally obliged to do, and there has been nothing from any ministerial level encouraging this process,” Burke said on the ABC program. insider Sunday morning program.
The Minister denied the allegations Sunday Telegraph The article had been ongoing for months, reporting on Sunday that high-level briefings between NSW and federal agencies were being held on Sunday to repatriate the group and make arrangements for their return.
He said that when conditions in al-Roj camp began to deteriorate, the agencies met to discuss risks to national security, raising the possibility that some families there might try to leave.
“In this [Sunday Telegraph] The report claims that we made a repatriation process. We are not. He claims that we are in talks with the states for the purpose of repatriation. We didn’t,” Burke said.
“Our officials are consulting with state officials to ensure that we are prepared if the risk to national security is likely to increase.
“When the conditions of the camp started to deteriorate and there was a possibility that some people might get out, which they did… the national security teams, the joint counter-terrorism teams, come together for public safety, as they did under the previous government, as they do now.”
One of a group of 34 people seeking to return to Australia from a concentration camp in Syria has been prevented from doing so under a temporary exclusion order designed to protect Australians from national security risks.
Burke and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese were pressured by the Coalition to use these orders to prevent the repatriation of other women and children. But Burke said they did not meet the threshold for a removal order based on intelligence advice.
“Other than a temporary exclusion order, there is no legislative power to prevent an Australian citizen from entering Australia,” he said.
“One of my concerns about how the opposition have handled this issue is that they have effectively told the minister: [should] “You need to be able to compensate for that…as if you somehow have to ignore your national security intelligence and law enforcement in your national security portfolio.”
Burke confirmed that a person subject to an exclusion order is deemed to pose a higher level of risk than the rest of the group.
“I’m not going to go over everything our intelligence agencies do, but I can put it this way: The group is not cohesive. There are very different people within this group, with different backgrounds and different moods,” he said.
“They’re quite different, but our agencies have been tracking them for a long time. The reason why a person is expelled because they say that person meets the threshold for an interim exclusion order is, quite specifically, what we know about that person.”
Asked if this meant the remaining 33 would not pose a threat to Australia, Burke said: “That’s true.”
He added: “If at any point the agencies decide that another briefing comes to me, I would deal with that immediately and I think the record shows how seriously I take the advice of those agencies.
“Based on the information we have, the best way to protect Australians is to not include any further interim exclusion orders.”
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Natassia Chrysanthos is a Federal Political Correspondent. He has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
