Increasing our humanitarian settlement intake would help untangle the policy knot around irregular migration to Australia.
Over the past decade, humanitarian visas have been capped at about 13,500 per year. This quota includes off shore refugees and those granted visas under the Special Humanitarian Program (onshore convention refugees and their families regardless of mode of arrival, family members of resettled refugees and other persons living in situations of extreme discrimination). The quota cap within the humanitarian stream is problematic not least because of the increasing difficulties experienced by refugee settlers in…