How Australia’s ‘luck of the draw’ asylum system is leaving vulnerable people in limbo for years

‘The end result of “the process” is a group of traumatised people – more traumatised even than when they first arrived’: Sister Aileen Crowe. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Bad news came always in a brown envelope. Those carried negative decisions, Sister Aileen Crowe says: the application for protection was rejected.

Over two decades, Crowe, a Franciscan nun, has lost count of the number of envelopes she has opened alongside anxious asylum seeker families, lost count of the number of hours spent pacing departmental halls waiting for the all-or-nothing assessment interview, lost count of the number of appeals she’s shepherded through Australia’s labyrinthine appeals process.