Indigenous man Brendan Thoms lost a legal fight for damages over his immigration detention
because as an Indigenous person he did not “answer the description of ‘alien’ according to the ordinary understanding of the word”.
Immigration officials cancelled the permanent residency visas of Mr Thoms and a second man, Daniel Love, in 2018 under the “character” provisions in section 501 of the Migration Act. The pair argued they had a “special connection” to Australia that outweighed the fact they had never taken out citizenship.
On Wednesday, the High Court unanimously agreed with the Commonwealth’s argument, finding that at the time of Mr Thoms’ detention in Brisbane there were reasonable grounds to suspect he was an unlawful non-citizen.“The Court therefore concluded that the applicant’s detention was lawful because the objective facts at the time provided reasonable grounds for each of the officers to suspect that he was an unlawful non-citizen,” a statement said.
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