Offshore processing : an Australian phenomenon?

In September of 2001, a 'national crisis' caused by a perceived influx of asylum seekers led the Australian government to negotiate a series of hasty regional arrangements with its pacific neighbours that led to the so-called 'pacific solution'. Under the 'pacific solution' all asylum seekers who land in an excised territory are detained and processed in Nauru or Papua New Guinea's Manus Island. Although a bill seeking to allow the processing of all asylum seekers arriving by boat in Nauru was withdrawn in August of 2006, areas of excised territory have been extended by the Coalition government over the years to the extent that it is now almost impossible for the majority of asylum seekers to access Australian territory. Australia is not the first country to detain asylum seekers heading for its soil in neighbouring countries. In 1981, twenty years prior to the Tampa crisis in Australia, the then president of the United States, Ronald Regan declared that asylum seekers had become "a serious national problem detrimental to the interests of the United States". The US adopted a policy of interdiction of Haitian asylum seekers which led to the detention and processing of asylum seekers on boats and in the US military base of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The United States also negotiated hasty agreements with its Caribbean and South American neighbours to share the perceived burden of those seeking protection. This paper will compare the offshore processing regimes of the United States and Australia. It will show that 'Offshore processing is in fact not an Australian Phenomenon and that Australia's use of offshore processing is an alarming extension of a tried and failed policy.