March 25, 2022
Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Ali, who was only 15 when he was first detained as an illegal immigrant in Australia, has now started a new life in the United States after nine years confined in various Australian detention centers.
In a tweet, Ali, now 24, announced March 3 that he would be leaving Australia, saying: “Tonight I am free and leaving Australia to start my life in the United States of America. But I won’t be happy until all my friends are released from detention. It’s not freedom until we are all free. Thank you for all your support.”
Part of Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority, Ali was indefinitely detained by the Australian government for nine years and held the last three years at the Park Hotel in Melbourne, which houses 30 other asylum-seekers.
Ali’s parents sent him out of Iran for his own safety. He arrived at Australia’s Christmas Island by boat from Indonesia, then was sent to a detention center on Nauru, where he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2019, he was brought to Australia for medical care and confined first in Brisbane and then in Melbourne’s Park Hotel, which is used exclusively for illegal immigrants.
Australia’s draconian immigration processing policy and practices have been dubbed the “Pacific Solution,” which sees asylum-seekers diverted by Australia and detained in Nauru, an independent island country, and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea in a scheme to keep them out of Australia.
Ali and the Park Hotel gained considerable public attention after Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic was stripped of his visa and held there for a few weeks. Ali, alongside others living in the hotel, took the chance to protest and demand the release of all those confined there.
Earlier, in September 2016, the Obama Administration agreed to accept up to 1,250 of Australia’s boat people in exchange for Australia taking an equal number of Latin Americans that the US did not want to admit. In essence, each of the countries agreed to export to the other those refugees who were the biggest political problem.
President Donald Trump criticized the agreement when he came into office, but agreed to abide by it after a loud argument over it in a phone call with Australia’s prime minister.
Illegal immigration by boat people is a huge and emotional political issue in Australia, although larger numbers fly into Australia and then overstay their visas without causing much anguish.
As of last June, the United States had taken in 968 refugees from Australia. The number of Iranians among those has not been announced. As of last September, the Refugee Council of Australia, said Australia still detained 2,022 illegal immigrants and that 436 of them were Iranian nationals.
Also released with Ali was his cousin, Adnan Choopani, who is one year older than Ali and who announced on Twitter that he would be resettled in Chicago. Ali didn’t say what city he would be moving to.
