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| Down Under |
| Deport Sudanese troublemakers, businessman says |
| 2007-10-05 |
| A prominent Brisbane businessman has backed the Federal Immigration Minister's claims that some Sudanese refugees struggle to assimilate in Australia. Federal Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews says no new African applications will be processed until June next year and it has nothing to do with race. He says some African communities, such as those from Sudan, have been slow to integrate with the wider community. The president of the Caxton Street Association Sarosh Mehta says young Sudanese men cause problems in the precinct every weekend and it is a serious problem. He says the answer is simple - deport the troublemakers. "I would like to publicly call on Kevin Andrews the Minister for Immigration to simply send them back to where they came from," he said. "And I assure you the minute we start doing that the message will get through to the rest of these guys real fast." Yesterday, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh attacked Mr Andrews' reasoning, saying Sudanese refugees are not involved in crime any more frequently than any other sector of the Australian community. "Those Sudanese refugees are actually under-represented in the crime statistics," she said. "What that tells me is that these people are law-abiding citizens, by and large that they are not committing crimes at a rate any higher than the average citizen from any other part of the world." Tags: community-and-society, immigration , race-relations, government-and-politics, federal-government, refugees, australia |
| Posted by:Oztralian |