A number of asylum-seeker children held in Australian mainland detention centres are to be released, officials said Tuesday, although hundreds of others will remain locked up in offshore camps.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said a large number of these children and their families would be given bridging visas allowing them to live in the community, attend school and have access to health and financial support.
The programme only applies to children currently in community detention or in mainland detention centres and who arrived in Australia before July 19, 2013.”We are confident that we can move a large number of them off community detention into the bridging visa programme,” said Morrison, who has come under fierce criticism from rights groups for not doing enough to care for asylum-seeker children.
Rights groups welcomed the move but said it should also include children held in offshore facilities.
