Australian authorities are planning to tighten immigration laws in response to recent pogroms in migrant camps. reports this ABC .

Australian Migration Minister Chris Bowen has announced a proposal to introduce restrictions on immigrants suspected of minor crimes such as arson. Currently, restrictions on obtaining visas apply only to people who have committed crimes with prison terms exceeding 12 months.

Bowen announced the introduction of a special check that will identify migrants who have committed crimes while staying in refugee camps. According to the politician, such migrants should receive visas with limited rights and validity. However, the changes will not affect law-abiding visa applicants.

According to the minister, if the law is approved by parliament, the start date will be April 26. Bowen's statement has already sparked protests among migrants.

Opposition representatives, in turn, accused the government that such actions would lead to the return of temporary visas, which were abolished in 2008. Temporary visas were issued en masse to refugees from “problem” countries (such as Afghanistan and Iraq) and allowed them to stay in Australia for only three years. If the Australian government believed that the situation in the refugees’ homeland was changing for the better, they could be deported from the country.

The toughening of the position of the Australian authorities was a response to regular unrest organized by migrants in temporary residence camps. Thus, on April 21, about a hundred migrants staged a pogrom at a temporary detention center in Sydney, and a month earlier, a similar incident occurred at an immigration center on Christmas Island. At the same time, according to the opposition, the authorities themselves are to blame for the protests, as they take too long to consider cases of granting refugees the right to enter the country.

Australia to tighten immigration policy