Mentally ill woman wrongly deported

SYDNEY - Australian authorities have admitted they knew for two years that a mentally ill Australian woman was mistakenly deported to the Philippines in 2001 but did nothing to find her and bring her home.

Criticism of Australia's tough immigration policy mounted yesterday with one major newspaper describing it as "echoes from White Australia" and the opposition Labor Party calling for a high-level inquiry.

Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said that authorities were searching the Philippines for Vivian Alvarez but defended the immigration policy, saying Alvarez was using a different name when she was expelled.

"That's not an excuse. This shouldn't have happened," Vanstone told Australian radio.

"But I think we need to keep it in perspective. These are high-profile cases, but they're not the whole caseload."

Australia is a nation built on migrants but it has one of the world's strictest immigration policies, detaining illegal arrivals, illegal workers and people who overstay, sometimes for years while their cases are heard.

The Government revealed last week that at least 33 Australians have been wrongfully detained in the past two years.

A mentally ill woman was locked up in an outback camp for 11 months because officials believed she was an illegal immigrant.

Vanstone said an immigration officer realised in 2003 that Alvarez had been mistakenly deported as an illegal immigrant two years earlier.

"The advice I have is that [the error] was not {passed up to the minister]," she said.

Alvarez had lived in Australia for some 18 years when she was deported, leaving behind two young children.

Her family in Australia said they had searched for her for four years unaware she had been deported, and believed until last week she was dead.

"Why wasn't I informed about this? I mean if I was informed, we could have fixed it straight away," Alvarez's brother, Henry Solon, told the ABC.

"I could have been shouting ... 'No, no. She's an Australian citizen'."

Solon said he was worried about his sister's mental health. "We just hope that she's alive and we're not too late in fixing the problem."

Labor said the Alvarez case added to the need for a major inquiry into Australia's detention centres.

People policy

* Australia's immigration detention camps have been condemned by international human rights groups - and hit by riots, escapes and suicide bids as asylum-seekers become frustrated at delays in hearing cases.

* The tough stand against illegal immigration and people-smuggling has helped Prime Minister John Howard win four straight elections.

- REUTERS