Still reeling from the horror of 9/11, the US is now demanding that all visa entrants hold biometric visas from the end of 2004.
The majority of these overseas trained health and social welfare professionals were either humanitarian entrants or spousal visa holders and were facing numerous barriers to re-qualification.
However, as Foster (2009) has documented, the original rationale for the character regime was to give the Minister the power to exclude undesirable entrants (by refusing a visa) rather than remove those who were residing in Australia.
Arguments against include that it may send the wrong signal to future would-be illegal entrants, and regularising through visas many people here may lead to their dependents overseas then applying too, if the rules allow, thus increasing net migration.
Entrants to Australia on student visas, including international university students, comprise a increasing proportion of travellers, from 3.7% of short-term arrivals in 2000 to 6.3% in 2010 [ 3].
But by far the biggest route for non-EU entrants into this country has been the student visa route.
The number of unauthorized immigrants, including those who overstay visitors' visas, surpassed the number of legal entrants at the peak with 662,000 and remained higher; it was estimated at 562,000 last year.
A large proportion of those who are accepted into Australia as refugees or humanitarian entrants are aged 17 or below (35% of offshore visas granted in 2010 2011 were to people aged 0 17) [ 4].
However, campaigners say that women to be used as domestic slaves don't just arrive on spouse visas, but also as students or other temporary entrants to the UK.
Above-board entrants aside, most undocumented migrants arrive legally and simply overstay their visas.
