An investigation by SBS has found they're among hundreds of migrants given adverse security records and refused naturalisation and, together with their communities, kept under sustained surveillance by Australia's domestic spy agency, ASIO.
Their supporters include one of Australia's most eminent legal minds, former High Court Judge Michael Kirby, who argues that some "remedial action" is justified.
Some members of the group are seeking a formal apology from the federal government for the way they were - in many cases - subjected to punitive action for decades.
Others simply want their still-existent records updated so they're no longer listed as security threats, and in some cases the children of those who have died are seeking such action.
A major SBS investigation using previously-classified documents from the National Archives of Australia has revealed that hundreds of migrants were denied citizenship for decades on political grounds.
Other measures put forward to deal with terrorist suspects in the 21st century - including deportation, detention or restricted movements - have also been used against migrants because of their known or suspected political leanings, usually as Communists.
The action against these migrants took place from the 1950s to 1970s, but details of what happened to them have in most cases only just come to light as their previously secret files have been declassified.
The SBS investigation shows that groups of migrants were treated as potential threats to Australia's national security from the very beginning of the post-war migration program, which coincided almost exactly with the beginning of the Cold War.
None of the thousands of previously-classified pages of documents examined by SBS mentions any official concerns about any criminal behaviour, just the objection to the political beliefs of individuals.
The SBS investigation has shown official treatment of these 'Unwanted Australians' has had extensive and, in many cases, severe detrimental effects on them.
Besides denial of citizenship and its associated rights, other effects have included job losses, inability to travel outside Australia even during family emergencies, relationship break-ups, family disputes, and social exclusion or ostracisation.
Their phones have been tapped, their social gatherings recorded and photographed, their mail censored, their bank account transactions inspected, their magazine and newspaper reading habits monitored and manipulated.
Individual migrants, refugees and often whole community groups have been subjected to a huge network of surveillance involving ASIO, state police special branches, and Immigration Department officials - often using paid and unpaid informants within communities.
Information on individuals and their friends, families and associates in Australia has been obtained and traded with foreign intelligence agencies, with unknown consequences for those with families still living overseas.
Starting from a time when Communists were still being executed after a bitter civil war, Australia was feeding right-wing Greek governments with information about "troublesome" Greeks in Australia with known or suspected Communist links.
Michael Kirby, who recently chaired a United Nations investigation into human rights abuses in North Korea, says the issues raised in the SBS investigation have relevance "to important past and contemporary political, legal and social questions in Australia".
"The main blemish that they suffered - loss of nationality in Australia - was, in fact, cured. One likes to think that Australia ultimately muddles its way to the correct outcomes in these matters. But that still leaves outstanding any injustice they may have suffered in the interim, whilst there was delay in the naturalisation process. And it also leaves untouched the need to remove what would be felt disadvantage and discrimination by reason of the earlier approach."
And Mr Kirby says the cases should be acknowledged at a national level.
"I hope that before this story is over we get in a state in Australia that we find it in ourselves big enough to acknowledge that wrongs were done and to have it expressed in our national parliament that we regret that was so, and that we assert that it was right that people should continue to protest their innocence, and to protest that acknowledgment of their association with another political party was not a reason why they should be denied Australian national status."
One case uncovered in the SBS investigation is that of Steve Pappas from Greece, who first applied for Australian naturalisation in 1929, but was not approved until 43 years later.
He'd worked and paid taxes for most of his life in Australia and, by then, was a 72-year-old who should have been on the pension.
Then there was Giovanni Sgro from Italy, who had to cancel a trip to visit his dying mother in his homeland because he couldn't get a re-entry permit to return to Australia.
He had to wait more than 20 years for citizenship, before going on to become a state Labor politician in Victoria.
"I applied three or four times, and they refused me all the time without any reason whatsoever. I still don't know the (official) reason why. I know why after I read the letters my local member (of parliament) used to send to the (Immigration) minister and the minister to him. And it was for political reasons because what they did at the time, because we were many thousands of migrants in this country, they used to want to show to the other migrants if you do what Giovanni did you get in trouble. You will not become citizens."
Jimmy Anastassiou from Cyprus, a trade union activist, faced deportation proceedings that were dropped at the last minute after a botched government bid to block his re-entry while he was on an overseas trip.
He also had to wait many years for citizenship.
His daughter, Marilena, struggles to understand why her father came close to being deported.
"This absolutely astounds me that the government went to so much trouble to keep this one man out of the country because, yes, he was a man that was very much larger than life and very commanding in his presence, but that he should engender such a degree of animosity and desire to get rid of him actually defies logic in many respects."
Italian cane cutter Gio Saffigna almost had his citizenship taken away.
The Immigration Department sought legal advice on cancelling his citizenship and deporting him, but was told his activities had not been illegal.
Greek industrial chemist Denis Skiotis, meanwhile, waited two decades to become an Australian citizen.
He has long claimed that refusals of naturalisation had a devastating impact on migrant communities, including discouraging members from participating in Australian political life.
"They were (also) afraid of not becoming citizens, of being refused citizenship, of losing their jobs, all that. Imagine an unskilled worker losing his job because of politics? They weren't prepared to risk it. And they came from a background where there was a lot of fear."
George Zangalis from Greece became probably the best-known of the "Unwanted Australians" and, perhaps, the most prominent migrant member of the Communist Party.
His security files branded him "undesirable" and a "menace to society".
He, too, was refused citizenship and was subject to other measures, like intensive surveillance, for years.
"What did George Zangalis do, for instance, that ASIO would put him on the black list and not make him an Australian citizen? What did he do? Ordinary people saw that along with others we were involved in trying to improve the lot of their life and also have our socialist ideas. We wanted to see a different world and we're not hiding it. What we did every day is put another leaflet out in Greek or Italian about what workers are entitled to, in other words, being active for organising for a better life in Australia, and objectively of course an opponent, or adding to the number of those opposed to the powers that be. We're not friends of the government or employers."
Former Chinese seaman Boon Juat Lee served in both the Australian and United States armies in Australia in World War Two and was given Australian residency - but he was refused citizenship despite having an Australian-born wife and two Australian-born children.
He was also initially refused a re-entry permit to Australia in order to travel to China and, when he was finally able to visit, just missed seeing his mother before she died.
His daughter, Marlene, was with him on that trip.
"That was the beginning of a three-day mourning period, and it was so hard because my Dad had all of these gifts for his mother that he hadn't seen for 40 years. And he was so devastated, because he had been trying to get to Hainan to see his mother for many years, and he had applied to go to China before but he was refused." (an Australian re-entry permit)
Dutchman Johannes Vorstman tried to get the United Nations to launch a breach-of-human-rights investigation into Australia over its decision to deny his citizenship application.
He also claimed to have been told his application would be treated more favourably if he agreed to be an ASIO informer.
"That's the proposition they put to me, if I wanted to become an Australian citizen they would like in return that I help them expose trade union and Communist Party members."
The investigation by SBS has shown that these and many others were on a secret index of migrants that contained thousands of names, and was maintained for years.
With the assistance of the Immigration Department, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation during peace-time maintained what became known as the Special Alien Index of people regarded as possible security risks.
The existence of the lists, maintained until the 1970s, has never been publicly acknowledged.
Among the names are hundreds of migrants who for decades were denied citizenship on political grounds.
Some of them are now calling for national acknowledgment of what they say was wrongful treatment by past Australian governments.
Those on the Special Alien Index - who faced potential internment or other restrictions should an emergency arise - included many migrants and refugees lured to Australia by promises of a safe, new life away from war-torn Europe.
The Chairman of the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia, Joe Caputo, says he's shocked that some people were listed for potential internment almost straight after arriving on work contracts.
"I find it rather disturbing that Australia had that Index with so many thousands of newly-arrived Australians who were just put on that Index because of suspicion or because of very flimsy grounds. Most of the communities would not have known about that Index. So, it's very disturbing."
ASIO's Director-General for most of the 1950s and 60s, Charles Spry, at one stage said it was the policy to include anyone on the list who had only "comparatively slight adverse traces".
At what's thought to be its peak, declassified ASIO documents reveal it contained over 16,500 names, including British subjects.
That's more people than Australia had interned during both World Wars.
Human rights lawyer Julian Burnside is surprised at the high number.
"It's very disturbing to know there were so many people on the Index. It suggests there was a lot of overreach, and that they were working on the footing that it's better that ten innocent people be locked up than one dangerous person be left in the community."
A high proportion of the names on the secret index were people believed to be either supportive of Communism or members of the Communist Party of Australia, the CPA.
Some were openly members of the CPA or involved with the party, it being a perfectly legal activity endorsed by the Australian people when they rejected a federal government bid to ban the party at a referendum in 1951.
The SBS investigation details how for decades after the referendum, both ASIO and the Immigration Department vigorously sought out any information that linked migrants to the CPA.
And this information -- or even the mere suspicion -- could, and often was, then used against them.
By the late 1960s refusal of citizenship on security grounds would become the only reason for inclusion on the index, and the number on the lists dropped below 300.
The denial of citizenship and other official measures were seen by many of the "Unwanted Australians" not just as a response to their political leanings, but also as an attempt to curb their activism.
Some were at the forefront in battles for better treatment of migrants - particularly improved working conditions - and took part in rallies, for example, against military rule in Greece, and in favour of self-determination for Cyprus.
Others publicly opposed an Australia government move to include non-citizens among the young men being conscripted into the military to fight in the Vietnam War.
Even those who had a public profile were often unaware of the full extent of the measures taken against them - indeed some still have closed files - and few have ever spoken publicly of their negative experiences.
Even today there is deep bitterness among some SBS has spoken to about the way they were treated.
Giovanni Sgro, who went on to become a Labor MP in Victoria, was refused naturalisation multiple times, while being under sustained ASIO and police surveillance.
"It's rotten. I felt unwanted. I didn't know what to feel. I was proud on one hand because I knew, myself, that I didn't commit any crime. I didn't belong to the mafia or to any illegal organisation. And that was the worst thing about me. I knew I didn't commit any crime, but I knew I suffered the consequences for political reasons. For what I am. For what I was."
Material uncovered by SBS also reveals how questions have been raised in the past over the legal validity on which citizenship was denied to the "Unwanted Australians".
A Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security in the early 1970s wanted to know what criteria the Immigration Minister had been using to reject citizenship applications on security grounds.
Declassified correspondence reveals the Immigration Department admitted that a document from a senior legal officer was the only written legal opinion supporting the validity of the Ministerial discretionary power being exercised over security cases under the Citizenship Act.
One recommendation from Commissioner, Justice Robert Hope, adopted by the federal government was for tribunals that could hear appeals in future cases, including the rejection of citizenship on security grounds.
Another recommendation, not adopted, was for the federal government to consider compensation for individuals found to have been particularly wronged.
Before his death in 2015, former Labor Attorney General Kepp Enderby told SBS:
"That's one of the jobs the Hope Royal Commission was given - to try and improve ASIO, create a system of appeals for not only Australian-born citizens, but also for migrants, and with retrospectivity."
Despite Justice Hope's recommendation, the appeals tribunal was not allowed to examine security cases dating back to ASIO's foundation in 1949.
Former High Court judge Michael Kirby says there should be an investigation now into the way post-WW2 migrants were denied citizenship on political grounds.
He says it "should be reopened, reconsidered and hopefully to result in a just and principled response on the part of Australia."
"Many cases of arguable injustice should at last be acknowledged by Australia," he says, "and provided with a means to bring access to justice."
"Australia is often referred to as a parched continent. Sometimes it is necessary to bring the healing waters of justice to flow. This appears to be such a case," he told SBS.
Most of the now elderly migrants who have spoken to SBS and who were denied citizenship for decades would at least like an official apology from the federal government.
One of them is retired Sydney entrepreneur Costa Rorris.
"When I have to tell my children or grandchildren the story, and I haven't told them, I feel ashamed. Why? Not through a fault of my own. But how can you tell your grandchildren now, 'Come here, I want to tell you a story. I was denied citizenship.'"
Some who've known them, like Marilena Anastassiou, whose father was also targeted for deportation, want their history to be rewritten.
"As opposed to being portrayed as the agitators and troublemakers and the people who need to be deported, to be promoted in the sense that they were people who were fighting for rights, for justice, and equality amongst workers."
Johannes Vorstman claims he was asked to become an ASIO informant in exchange for citizenship, and wants his and other cases reviewed.
"They should make a statement in parliament that those sort of things happened in the past and to make sure this will never happen again. There should be an open inquiry like what's happening in other ways about what happened in those days."
Australian National University Professor Kim Rubenstein, from the Centre for International and Public Law, is among the academics who recognise the historical significance.
"It's not unlike, I guess, questions to do with the Stolen Generations, or wrongs that have been done as a society because of the culture and historical values of that period that we recognise clearly as being anti-democratic or illiberal in ways that are not consistent with rule of law principles that we so cherish. They are broader questions of national reconciliation, reconciliation with wrongs that have been done in the past."
And there are fears, too, that the kind of treatment that the "Unwanted Australians" experienced isn't necessarily confined to history.
Some who are acquainted with the world of security agencies see uncomfortable parallels with the past as Australia introduces even tougher measures to deal with perceived terrorism threats, and there's talk again of cancellation or denial of citizenship, and deportations of "undesirables".
Joe Caputo is among them.
"What concerns me is that they might still be doing these things to a lot of new and emerging communities now under this guise of terrorism. I would sincerely hope that the sons of ASIO are not continuing the second round and targeting lots of people who are good law-abiding citizens, who are here to build a life for themselves and they are probably suffering the same things as that wave of immigrants of the 1950s and 60s."
Without adequate safeguards, they argue, there's a danger Australia could end up having more long-term negative effects on innocent individuals who just dare to think differently from most.
Hope Royal Commission lawyer Ian Cunliffe says there's no guarantee that ASIO won't again target innocent people.
"There does need to be a continuing focus to make sure that we don't again fall into the sloppy and biased ways that were followed in ASIO in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I do have concerns that the political rhetoric puts all the focus on some particular groups of people and seems likely to ignore othe rpeople who are also causing trouble."
And to others, like former 'Unwanted Australian' George Zangalis, it's a case of hoping the current-day governments will be prepared to learn from the past.
"People coming to a new country need encouragement to be able to participate in the life of the country, not to fear that participation is counter-productive, not to have two standards of citizenship, one for those born here and another for those coming from overseas."
The full investigation can be found here:
