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In 1901, the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia passed the Immigration Restriction Act, also known as the White Australia policy. This piece of legislation, designed to end Asian immigration into the country, came in response to public outcry that workers from China and Japan would take Australian jobs and jeopardize their standard of living. Instead of specifying which racial and ethnic groups were to be excluded, the policy required prospective immigrants to take a dictation test in a European language. The tests were manipulated to exclude people of color: “A South Asian with a knowledge of English could be given a test in French, German, or, if need be, Lithuanian” (“White Australia Policy.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Mar. 2024). The policy remained in place for 50 years before being enforced less strictly under administrations led by the Liberal and Labor parties. The passage of the Australian Citizenship Bill in 1973 and the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975 ended the policy. In Abdel-Fattah’s novel, an anti-immigration TV program alludes to the White Australia policy to characterize Alan Blainey’s political views. While Blainey claims to condemn the policy, his organization echoes the racist and xenophobic rhetoric and ideology that led to the passage of the Immigration Restriction Act. The members of Aussie Values accuse immigrants, especially those from Asia, of stealing work from Australian-born citizens and devastating the economy. The Lines We Cross reflects the fact that, while the White Australia policy has ended, the racism that motivated the legislation continues to impact immigrants.
In 1992, Australia adopted an immigration policy of mandatory detention. This means that anyone “without a valid visa [is] to be detained until they are issued with a visa or removed from Australia” (“A Last Resort? - Summary Guide: The Facts about Immigration Detention in Australia.” Australian Human Rights Commission, 26 Apr. 2024). This policy includes children and asylum seekers. Australia has six immigration detention centers, the largest of which is the Villawood Detention Center located in Sydney. As of data available in December 2023, 872 people were in closed detention in Australia; 375 of these immigrants were detained in Villawood. As of April 2024, people spend an average of 620 days in detention, but immigrants from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran spend over 1,000 days in detention on average.
In recent years, Villawood has been accused of human rights abuses, including excessive use of force and deaths at the detention center. Abdel-Fattah’s novel does not depict Villawood Detention Center in detail. Instead, the author focuses on the terrible fear the place instills in the story’s immigrant characters. One of The Lines We Cross’s dual protagonists is a teenager named Mina, a refugee fleeing from the Taliban. When the Afghani girl is only six or seven years old, she and her mother arrive in Australia and are detained at Villawood for months. Organizations like the Global Detention Project and the Refugee Council of Australia are working to increase the number of asylum seekers allowed into the country and to improve the conditions they experience when they arrive.
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By Randa Abdel-Fattah