“Anchor babies”: Peter Dutton’s harsh label for Tamil children facing deportation
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has made a controversial statement surrounding the children in a Tamil asylum-seeker family that are facing deportation.
He’s called the children “anchor babies”.
"It's been made very clear to them at every turn that they were not going to stay in Australia and they still had children," Mr Dutton told 2GB radio on Thursday.
"We see that overseas in other countries – anchor babies, so-called – and the emotion of trying to leverage a migration outcome based on the children."
The Sri Lankan couple who are facing deportation came to Australia by boat separately several years ago before having two children.
They currently are in detention on Christmas Island as the Federal Court decides whether the youngest child, age 2, is eligible for protection in Australia.
Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally first raised the idea of debate around the Biloela family and that it was straying into “anchor baby” territory.
"This is an importation, quite frankly, of an American debate about so called 'anchor babies' and the law is very different in the United States where citizenship is accorded to anybody born on American soil," she said during an ABC radio interview.
"That is not the law in Australia so it's an importation of that debate."
However, Keneally is aware that the issue at hand is that Australians want the family to stay and integrate them into community.
"It's not simply the act of having a child," she said.
Dutton believes that it’ll take some time to resolve.
"I think it will go on now for potentially a couple of months because lawyers will try and delay and that's part of the tactic," he said.
"They think that if they delay they can keep the pressure up on the government and we'll change our mind in relation to this case."