Hundreds of asylum seekers may now face deportation after missing a deadline to apply for protection visas, according to data from the Department of Immigration.
Asylum seekers who came to Australia by boat between 2008 and 2013 and have not yet applied for a visa will now be cut off from welfare payments and are expected to leave the country, now that the government’s October 1 deadline has passed.
Those who do not leave voluntarily now "risk being detained and removed from Australia," a notice on the department’s website reads.
"You might have to pay the Australian Government for the cost of removing you from Australia."
The government will release the exact number who missed the deadline on Monday.
But an Immigration Department report from September 27, four days before the deadline, said there were 531 who had not yet applied for visas.
Of those, 235 were from Iran. The rest were from a range of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African nations – including Sri Lanka, Iraq and Vietnam.
Immigration minister Peter Dutton announced the deadline in May.
