World Day of Migrants and Refugees – September 29

In Pope Francis’  Message for this year’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees (29 September), he calls on us to encounter Jesus in people who flee oppression, abuse, insecurity and discrimination, and to welcome them.

For more than a decade, Australia has done the opposite to people seeking asylum who have come here by boat: either turning them back; detaining them in Papua New Guinea and Nauru or assessing their claims in Australia under the unfair ‘fast track process’.

As a result, there are still thousands of people with unresolved status:

• 8,500 people still subject to the ‘fast-track’ process living ‘temporarily’ in our community.
• 1,000 people medically evacuated from PNG and Nauru, living here on short-term visas.

• 50 people still held in PNG for 11 years and 100 on Nauru who’ve been there for up to a year.

Thousands (including most of those in PNG) are destitute and unable to work, with no access to Government support.

Vinnies, and refugee support agencies across Australia, do our best to support these vulnerable people. So, we call on Catholics to use the information in the official Australian booklet for the Day, to pray for all migrants and refugees and in particular to remember the most vulnerable people that we support.

As well, Vinnies calls for Australian Government to

• quickly and justly resolve the status of these people, so that they can begin to rebuild their lives in a permanent and safe home, and
• until this is achieved, provide all with work rights and support if they still can’t work.

Tim McKenna, President Caritas Christi Conference, St Vincent de Paul Society