Backlog !

There is a certain inevitability that most of the undocumented people waiting the resolution of their fate in both Australia and America will eventually have to be folded into the permanent population. The numbers are simply too great for deportation to be a credible solution - and the only thing holding up a sensible compromise - is politics !

In both countries, the obstacle in the past has been different political persuasions between the party holding power in the lower house not having the numbers in the upper chamber.  This deadlock seems implacable to any form of logical solution.

It seemed hopeful that some sort of compromise was being worked out to allow four hundred children stuck in camps on Christmas island to be repatriated to the Australian mainland - but this seems to be in doubt thanks to the ever shifting political alliances taking place in the Australian Senate.

Part of this deal was a lifting of the Australian refugee intake from 13,710 to 18,750 and the issueing of Safe Haven Enterprise Visas ( SHEV ) which permitted a five year stay in this country, provided that three years were spent in a regional area - and allowed a work permit.

There is a basic difference between the Australian and the American problem.  Most of the American undocumented have crossed the southern border and many have lived and worked in their new country for decades.  Most of the Australian refugees in detention centres are more recent and their arrival raised the Australian ire when they were paying people smugglers to try and force entry into this country.

This trade has been stopped in it's tracks and the very latest arrivals form a special group.   In stopping the boats the government promised that these last people would never be allowed permanent entry here, and that promise is being kept to deter a resumption of the people smuggling trade. Those that arrived pre that promise are the ones awaiting resettlement in some sort of legal limbo.

The sad thing is that most of those living a miserable life behind wire barriers are probably decent people who would make good citizens.  We certainly need to weed out any criminal elements who have managed to slip into the country and religious zealots intent on causing religious disharmony  are definitely unwelcome, but statistically both elements are a small minority.

The longer we avoid making a final decision and leave these people to rot in detention, the more we create problems in eventually settling them successfully into the community.  Work skills deteriorate the longer they are unused and both fear and deprivation are not conductive to a healthy mind. There is a real danger that they may become "institutionalized " - just as long term prisoners in the jail system lose their ability to make normal decisions that run their lives.   Unfortunately, in some cases irreversible damage may already have been done.

In America, the "illegals "question has sent both the main political parties to the barricades.  Crossing the dividing line is almost regarded as an act of treason and in the present climate no reaching across the aisle seems possible.   Here in Australia the lines are more blurred.    Both the main political parties are eager to settle the issue - just so long as the decision is in their favour and they can crow about the justice of their stance.  The sticking point is an unstable minority holding the balance of power in the Senate and milking the issue for all it is worth to achieve the point scoring they hope will provide their individual survival at the next election.

It seems that this indecisive type of voting pattern will hold until the voting public of both nations decide that enough - is enough.   In desperation, the voter will deliver one party to office with the numbers to actually govern - and in America that would need to combine with the two houses and the presidency being in alignment.

In Australia it would require either the abolition of the Senate - or a swing to a single political party of such magnitude that the array of fringe politics was swept away and the party in government carried both houses.

Neither seems likely in the present political climate !