Andrew L. Urban
In all the hullabaloo over the prospect of a group of female ISIS terrorist supporters (aka ‘ISIS brides’) returning to Australia with their children, it seems to have been forgotten (or ignored) that a passport is a travel document, not a citizenship document.
Roughly 44% of Australians do not have a valid passport — or approximately 11–12 million people. They are citizens, all the same. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke knows this. If he doesn’t, or his bureaucrats haven’t told him, Australia has an even bigger problem than we thought. And the problem is big enough already.
These women originally travelled to Syria/Iraq around 2013–2015 (during the height of ISIS), likely using their valid Australian passports at the time, as many foreign fighters did before stricter measures were in place. Australia later cancelled or suspended passports for some suspected foreign fighters (around 90+ cancellations reported in earlier years like 2015), but not all cases, and this didn’t prevent their initial departure or render them passport-less upon leaving years ago.
Earlier this month, a group of about 11 women and 23 children in the Roj camp attempted to leave Syria for Australia. They were issued Australian passports (described as single-entry or temporary travel documents) by the Australian government.
This was confirmed by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, who stated that Australian citizens have a legal right to apply for and receive passports, and the government is obligated to issue them in such cases (though they deny actively assisting repatriation beyond that legal minimum). But contrary to Burke’s assertion, the Government is NOT obligated to issue them and is entitled to refuse passports, without rescinding citizenship, if it suspects there would be a national security risk.