Migration
When border control goes over the line
The failure of the Australian government to return citizens and permanent residents from New Delhi on the first repatriation flight to Darwin since the recent shutdown of air…
Australia and migration: Will the Covid pause become a full stop?
In late 2019, I published a short book titled Our Very Own Brexit, which argued that Australia might one day break from Asia as Britain had broken from Europe. The trigger I…
Closed borders: The unequal waiting game
The experience of crossing national borders has always been defined by inequality. A hierarchy of mobility determined those who were free and facilitated to move and those who…
America’s border crisis: Good intentions go south
Spare a thought for US Vice President Kamala Harris, just given carriage for the public-policy problem from hell: leading the White House response to a surge in migrants seeking…
The Beirut explosion and the plight of Syrian refugees
When you have the privilege of working in international relations, there are some experiences that stay with you for life. There are the places you go and the people you meet…
Rohingya in Malaysia, doubly trapped
For some people living in the Ampang district in eastern Kuala Lumpur, self-isolation is nothing new. The area is known for its concentration of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar,…
Covid-19: Refugees at risk
The first case of Covid-19 was detected near the world’s largest refugee camp last month. Human rights groups fear it’s only matter of time before it spreads among the roughly one…
Covid-19 is not only a health crisis, it’s a migration crisis
As Covid-19 spreads around the globe, it is precipitating a series of other shocks, one of which is a crisis in human movement. Australia, as one of the key migrant-receiving…
Migration: The bargaining power of transit states
Even before concern about the spread of the novel coronavirus Covid-19 took hold, notions of migration “crises” and migration “panic” have been on the rise, partly fuelled by…
Hollowed out, but not unhinged
Sam Roggeveen has written a lively essay on the current state of Australian federal politics, centred on the hypothetical scenario that one of the two major parties takes an anti…