Kids are ‘anchor babies’: Dutton

HOME Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has referred to the children in a Tamil asylumseeker family facing deportation as “anchor babies”.

Mr Dutton said the family’s long-running fight for Australian protection had cost taxpayers “literally millions of dollars”.

“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 yesterday.

“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 came separately to Australia by boat several years ago before marrying, having two children and settling in the central Queensland town of Biloela.

They are now in detention on Christmas Island as the Federal Court decides whether the youngest child is eligible for protection in Australia.

Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally first raised the prospect of debate around the Biloela family straying into “anchor baby” territory during an ABC radio interview last week.

“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. “That is not the law in Australia so it’s an importation of that debate.”

Senator Keneally said the real issue at hand was that Biloela locals and Australians more broadly had embraced the family and wanted to integrate them into the community.

“It’s not simply the act of having a child,” she said.

Mr Dutton said the legal challenge would some time to resolve. latest take

IT’S BEEN MADE VERY CLEAR TO THEM ... THAT THEY WERE NOT GOING TO STAY IN AUSTRALIA AND THEY STILL HAD CHILDREN PETER DUTTON

“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.”

The comments come after residents of Biloela travelled more than 1400km to Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday to deliver a petition with more than 250,000 signatures urging the Morrison Government to let the family stay.