Leanne Weber, University of Canberra
The outgoing Coalition government attempted on several occasions, in 2018, 2019 and 2021, to introduce ‘designated offences’ into section 501 of the Migration Act that were intended to trigger the automatic cancellation of visas held by convicted non-citizens, regardless of sentences imposed by courts. Although they failed to pass into law, these proposals provide an insight into the governmentalities driving deportation policy. The attempt to by-pass courts, while having the obvious effect of increasing the control exercised by immigration authorities, can also be understood against a broader backdrop of increasing automation of administrative systems, most fully realised perhaps in the notorious social security debt collection system known as ‘Robo-Debt’. In this somewhat speculative paper, I will discuss the attempt to embed designated offences into the criminal deportation machinery with reference to theorising about ‘human-non-human’ networks, ‘surveillant assemblages’ and algorithmic governance in which the subject to be governed is not addressed in terms of their humanity but as the digitally coded occupant of a particular risk category. While human decision-making in the field of deportation may perhaps be less than exemplary, tipping the balance still further towards reliance on non-human agency erodes the space available for due process and human rights and raises fundamental questions about emerging modes of governance.
Biography
The outgoing Coalition government attempted on several occasions, in 2018, 2019 and 2021, to introduce ‘designated offences’ into section 501 of the Migration Act that were intended to trigger the automatic cancellation of visas held by convicted non-citizens, regardless of sentences imposed by courts. Although they failed to pass into law, these proposals provide an insight into the governmentalities driving deportation policy. The attempt to by-pass courts, while having the obvious effect of increasing the control exercised by immigration authorities, can also be understood against a broader backdrop of increasing automation of administrative systems, most fully realised perhaps in the notorious social security debt collection system known as ‘Robo-Debt’. In this somewhat speculative paper, I will discuss the attempt to embed designated offences into the criminal deportation machinery with reference to theorising about ‘human-non-human’ networks, ‘surveillant assemblages’ and algorithmic governance in which the subject to be governed is not addressed in terms of their humanity but as the digitally coded occupant of a particular risk category. While human decision-making in the field of deportation may perhaps be less than exemplary, tipping the balance still further towards reliance on non-human agency erodes the space available for due process and human rights and raises fundamental questions about emerging modes of governance.