‘We’ll lock you up’: Dutton warns Comm Games runaways

Don’t mess with the D-Man.

That’s the message from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who says he’ll track down and lock up any Commonwealth Games athlete who outstays their visa in Australia. 

His stern warning comes after eight athletes from Cameroon, a Rwandan, two Ugandans and potentially one Ghanaian, disappeared without a trace from athletes village at the Gold Coast over the past week. 

Yesterday, Cameroon officials stated that five athletes were missing after failing to show up to their events at the Games, but that number increased to eight on Thursday. Their team manager Victor Agbor Nso said he’d lost contact with several team members – some whom hadn’t been seen or heard from since the Games kicked off last week.

Dutton appeared on 2GB radio on Thursday where he made it clear this sort of behaviour would not be tolerated.

“These people and others who might have a similar objective need to hear this message very clearly: they aren’t going to game the system, they aren’t going to stay here and the Australian Border Force officers in the compliance division will find these people, they will be held in immigration detention until they can be deported,” he explained, striking a remarkable resemblance to Liam Neeson’s character in the movie Taken. 

Most athletes will be able to lawfully remain in Australia until mid-May, but the fact that a mass exodus appears to be underway isn’t a good sign.

“On the face of what I have seen so far, people are validly on visas until mid-May, nonetheless though we are concerned that people haven’t turned up to events when that is the reason they were here,” Dutton said. “We warned about this before the Games, people were saying ‘you are being too harsh’ and the rest of it but that’s the reality.”

He added that athletes who are caught in the country after their visas had expired could be sent to detention centres until they are able to leave the country.

“The compliance officers will be out there, I promise, tracking these people down and they will be deported as quickly as possible,” he said. “So if they don’t want to be held in detention or locked up at the local watch-house they would be better to jump on a plane before the 15th and comply with their visa conditions.”

It’s not the first time during the Games that people have tried to enter Australia illegally. Nine Indian nationals were detained at Brisbane International Airport after falsely trying to enter the country just a week before the Opening Ceremony. The group told officials they were journalists and that they were in Australia to cover the Games, but authorities found that wasn’t the case. Rakesh Kumar Sharma was charged over the incident and for trying to smuggle eight people into the country.

Australia was caught in a similar situation during the 2000 Sydney Olympics when dozens of athletes tried to remain in the country after the event ended. It is believed that athletes from Cameroon also went missing in London after the 2012 Olympic Games.

What do you think should happen to athletes who are caught trying to overstay their visas?