Funding for Afghanistan is currently falling short of what is needed. Special advisor to the Refugee Council of Australia Ahmad Shuja Jamal commented: “The UN humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan has only raised about half the required funds, highlighting the dire gap in urgent assistance in Afghanistan – a gap that Australia could help address.”

He continued: “Generous Australian assistance will be critical in saving Afghan lives and stave off avoidable suffering, death and displacement.”

When considering how to help those wanting to flee Afghanistan, refugee quotas inevitably come under the spotlight.

Lawyers Weekly recently covered the 2022 budget allocation of places for refugees from Afghanistan. The article noted that the “additional allocation should, however, be viewed in the context that refugee places were cut in 2020’s budget, and many places went unused during COVID-19”.

One of the recommendations made in Australia’s engagement in Afghanistan: final report is to make communications and the process relating to visa applications better. The report lays out four points in relation to this recommendation, as follows:

• Urgently sending acknowledgments to all visa applicants from Afghanistan to assist with ongoing processing and communication;
• Publishing more detailed criteria and guidance about how humanitarian visas for the Afghan cohort will be prioritised, as well as expected average time frames for visa applications to be assessed;
• Ensuring applicants on subclass 449 visas are given sufficient time and resources to lodge their permanent visa applications; and
• Issuing additional subclass 449 visas as necessary to overseas split family members of evacuees in Australia to ensure family unity is preserved in permanent visa applications.

Commenting on the report, Refugee Council of Australia’s chief executive Paul Power stated: “People need to know the timeline for processing their visa and their likelihood of success, so they can make difficult choices for their safety. The ongoing insecurity in Afghanistan and the lack of clarity around visa processing is leaving people in precarious situations.”

Mr Power added that “the lack of communication is causing significant stress and anxiety for Afghan community members in Australia desperate to bring their family to safety”.

One lens for understanding the challenges facing those who want to leave Afghanistan, and migrants in general, is to view the issues as they relate to families.

Lawyers Weekly reported on the recent paper: Together in Safety: A report on the Australian Government’s separation of families seeking safety, in the article Family visa system in need of dramatic improvement, Senate inquiry finds.

The Together in Safety report highlights how damaging it is to separate families, and the inquiry preceding the report called on the Department of Home Affairs to consider changes to help migrant families.

The article stated: “A Senate inquiry has shown that the current legal system is failing to keep migrant families together, and bureaucracy is too often a roadblock.”