Commonwealth Consolidated Acts

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MIGRATION ACT 1958 - SECT 253

Detention of deportee

  (1)   Where an order for the deportation of a person is in force, an officer may, without warrant, detain a person whom the officer reasonably supposes to be that person.

  (2)   A person detained under subsection   (1) or (10) may, subject to this section, be kept in immigration detention or in detention as a deportee in accordance with subsection   (8).

  (3)   Where an officer detains a person under subsection   (1) or (10), the officer shall forthwith inform the person of the reason for the detention and shall, if that person so requests, furnish to him or her, as soon as practicable, particulars of the deportation order.

  (4)   If a person detained under this section (in this subsection called the detained person ) claims, within 48 hours after the detention and while the detained person is detention, that he or she is not the person in respect of whom the deportation order is in force, the person to whom the claim is made shall:

  (a)   if that last - mentioned person is an officer--ask the detained person; or

  (b)   in any other case--cause an officer to ask the detained person;

to make a statutory declaration to that effect, and, if the person detained makes such a declaration, the officer who asked him or her to make the declaration shall take him or her before a prescribed authority within 48 hours after the making of the declaration, or, if it is not practicable to take him or her before a prescribed authority within that time, as soon as practicable after the expiration of that period.

  (5)   If a detained person who is required under subsection   (4) to be brought before a prescribed authority within a particular period, is not so brought before a prescribed authority, the person shall be released.

  (6)   Where a person is brought before a prescribed authority under this section, the prescribed authority shall inquire into the question whether there are reasonable grounds for supposing that that person is a deportee and, if the prescribed authority is satisfied that there are such reasonable grounds, the prescribed authority shall, by writing under his or her hand, declare accordingly.

  (7)   Where a prescribed authority makes a declaration in accordance with subsection   (6), the detained person may be held in detention as a deportee in accordance with subsection   (8), but otherwise the prescribed authority shall direct the release of that person and he or she shall be released accordingly.

  (8)   A deportee may be kept in immigration detention or such detention as the Minister, Secretary or Australian Border Force Commissioner directs:

  (a)   pending deportation, until he or she is placed on board a vessel for deportation;

  (b)   at any port or place in Australia at which the vessel calls after he or she has been placed on board; or

  (c)   on board the vessel until its departure from its last port or place of call in Australia.

  (9)   In spite of anything else in this section, the Minister, Secretary or Australian Border Force Commissioner may at any time order the release (either unconditionally or subject to specified conditions) of a person who is in detention under this section.

  (10)   An officer may, without warrant, detain a person who:

  (a)   has been released from detention under subsection   (9) subject to conditions; and

  (b)   has breached any of those conditions.

  (11)   Nothing contained in, or done under, this section prevents the Supreme Court of a State or Territory or the High Court from ordering the release from detention of a person held in detention under this section where the Court finds that there is no valid deportation order in force in relation to that person.


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