Abdellatif has watched hundreds of asylum seekers pass through and out of detention: granted bridging visas, protection visas, some deported. Abdellatif doesn’t count the days – 1,643 – he has been in held immigration detention. Four times the department has recommended to successive ministers that he be allowed apply for a protection visa. On 19 May 2015, the immigration minister granted the Abdellatif family leave to apply for temporary protection visas in Australia. Now ostensibly free, the change has, perversely, forced Abdellatif’s family further from him.

Source: The Guardian November 25, 2016 21:11 UTC