We Asked An Expert What Would Happen if Australia Closed Its Borders

In the aftermath of the weekend's Paris terrorist attacks, a Syrian Refugee's passport was discovered near a suicide bomber's body. The authenticity of the document has not been confirmed, but it's fueled fears that IS members might exploiting Europe's refugee crisis by posing as asylum seekers. Critics of Europe's management of asylum seekers were quick to link the terror attacks with immigration. In the US, American Republicans called to close the country's borders to Syrian refugees. In an attempt to quell concerns, Barack Obama was quick to remind people of the background checks asylum seekers go through to make sure they're not IS affiliated. In Europe though, the scale of the refugee crisis makes rigorous checks more difficult. As a result Poland has already reneged on their promise to allow entry to any additional Syrian refugees. Even Angela Merkel is facing pressure from her own party to tighten control over Germany's notably open borders. Next week Australia is set to begin our promised intake of 12,000 Syrian refugees. But immigration critics like New South Wales MP Andrew Fraser and politician Pauline Hanson are now pushing against the move. They want to see Australia's borders shut to all Syrian asylum seekers. While it's not a move the government is actively entertaining, it does beg the question—what would happen if our knees jerked so hard the border actually closed? VICE asked Dr. Denis Dragovic, an expert in rebuilding states after conflict at the University of Melbourne, what would happen if Andrew Fraser and Pauline Hanson got their way. VICE: Hey Denis, what would completely closing Australia's borders temporarily look like?
Dr Denis Dragovic: It would be catastrophic. We accept—this number varies slightly year by year—about 200,000 migrants coming to start new lives in Australia each year. That's an incredibly important part of our economic development. It's actually vital, because our population growth isn't significant enough in-and-of-itself: migrants add to our economy. So to survive as a country, we need our borders open?
Sure. Some of those migrants are very wealthy, they're business migrants. The amount of humanitarian migrants is small–around 13,000. This year it will be 13,000 plus the additional 12,000 Syrian refugees we've agreed to take in. Relative to the overall 200,000, the number of humanitarian migrants is very small. To close it all down is impossible in today's world. It's nonsensical. Do we even have the resources to pull off a border shutdown on that scale?
Sure, Australia could say "We're grounding all flights." If you remember during 9/11 in America, immediately after the two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center the government grounded all flights, so all passengers had to stay on ground. Australia could say "No flights will be accepted to land in Australia and any flights that are on their way have to turn around." That's possible, but it would never happen. Is that the only comparable example of a country shutting its borders?
It's the one that's the most similar in today's day and age. After 9/11 everything was shut down: flight and borders. If that's what people are calling for in Australia, it's nonsensical. Even in America, it only lasted a few hours. So the move would be completely unprecedented. How would the international community react? Would they say "Australia, what are you bloody doing mate?"
No, because Australia has quite tight border controls already, and the international community knows that. If we were to tighten it further, I don't think anyone would be terribly surprised. What are the chances of Australia following the calls coming from within the US and Europe to closer our borders to Syrian refugees?
We just wouldn't. In hindsight, the Abbott government stopping the boats—to use a crude phrase—was good, because it's allowed us to welcome the 12,000 Syrian refugees without fear. At the height of the boat arrival crisis, Australians were fearful. His tight border controls freed up the space that then allowed us to welcome those Syrian refugees. It's not as if we're low on physical space.
It freed up the political space. Everyone—Labor and Liberal—welcomed the announcement to take those 12,000 Syrian refugees. Had we still be in the boat arrival crisis, there wouldn't have been bipartisan support. Okay, so there's basically no circumstances under which we'd close the borders and not look insane.
There should not be any calls for closing the borders, there's absolutely no reason to worry. Australia has a very robust system in place that vets refugees. For example, the 12,000 Syrian refugees Australia is going to take in: For UNHCR to identify those 12,000 they do extensive interviews, ensuring those individuals are genuinely in fear of persecution and their lives are at risk. That's just the first stage. Australian security also vets them! We've got a double check that doesn't exist in Europe. To me, there's absolutely no reason to worry about an influx of "terrorist migrants" if you even want to use that phrase. So they're worrying about a threat that doesn't exist?
Not in the context of Australia. If any did come through as asylum seekers, it would be no different to them having come through on an airplane and having fooled the security services at those checkpoints. Is this conversation racially loaded? We're not talking about stopping immigration from Britain, or America, or Canada.
It's not necessarily racially motivated. You could say nationally motivated, because people are concerned about individuals from particular nations. We've got to acknowledge their fears and try to educate them, so we can say "yes, you're connecting dots, but those dots you're connecting are so simplistic that it's nonsensical." I would hesitate to say it's racist. What dots have they connected?
They're saying "there's a very dangerous terror group in the Middle East which has infiltrated communities in the Middle East, and we don't know which communities, so we should just stop anyone from that area from coming." That's their argument. That's the foundation for talk of closing the borders. It's a simplistic argument, and it's wrong, but I wouldn't say it's racist. I would avoid that terminology. Okay. If closing borders is ludicrous, what do we do?
It's too late to respond by tightening border security. This is the fifth year of the humanitarian crisis in Syria. So why did so many refugees from Syria flee this year in particular? The reason is that the millions who are living in the countries bordering Syria–Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey—those people are losing hope. The international community wasn't providing them the resources they needed to live. The United Nations appealed for $4 billion this year, but less than half has been met. Now, individual refugees in Jordan receive $14 a month: you can't live on that, you can't survive. Those people were forced to flee to Europe, because it was the last option they had, they would literally starve. If you close the borders, you don't solve the problem. What is the fundamental problem?
There are millions of people in these countries who have no future, and until there is a peace agreement in Syria and they can go home, we need to be supporting them financially. European countries, America, and Australia need to step up. Until enough money is provided that kids can to go school—that people have enough money to buy clothes to see them through the forthcoming winter—Syrian refugees will be forced to go somewhere else, and one of those places is Europe. Follow Isabelle on Twitter.