Human rights lawyers, refugee advocates and the Greens have accused the Albanese government of striking a “discriminatory, disgraceful and dangerous” deal to deport hundreds of foreign-born former detainees at a cost of almost half a billion dollars.
On Friday Australia and Nauru signed a memorandum of understanding allowing the government to deport about 280 members of the NZYQ cohort, a group of noncitizens living in the Australian community whose visas were cancelled on character grounds.