Key points
- 3,127 people have been sent to Nauru or PNG as part of offshore processing arrangements
As of 21 October 2018:
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1,278 people (including 52 children) are still on Nauru or PNG (note: this number is constantly changing with transfers, with the latest estimate by refugee groups being 27 children as of 5 November 2018)
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415 people have been resettled in the US, and 188 people have been rejected for US resettlement as of the same date
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By far the largest number of those refused are from Iran (91), although 16 Iranians have been accepted
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There are 495 recognised refugees left in PNG, and 541 recognised refugees on Nauru
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There are 107 families on Nauru, including 52 families with minors
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There are 15 nuclear family units split between Australia and offshore processing, with 61 people split across Australia and offshore (30 in Nauru, and 31 in Australia)
As of 21 May 2018:
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Since September 2012 to May 2018, 646 people have left Manus and 165 from Nauru ‘voluntarily’ to their country of origin, and 20 people were forcibly removed from Manus
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494 people have been transferred to Australia for medical treatment, and 460 of them were still in Australia as of 21 May 2018 (based on official information that 294 people had left for the US as of 30 April 2018 and reports of another 121 people resettling in the US since then)
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7 people had left for Cambodia
The Department of Home Affairs (formerly the Department of Immigration and Border Protection) published monthly updates on Operation Sovereign Borders, which began in September 2013. It used to publish monthly and operational updates, but now only publishes monthly updates.
These updates provide information on how many people are in our processing centres, boat turnbacks, refugee status determination and returns from offshore processing centres and detention in Australia. They do not provide information on refugees who are still in Nauru or PNG but not in the offshore processing centre itself. From October 2017, the Department no longer publishes information about refugee status determination on Nauru or Papua New Guinea.
This page includes information from these updates as well as from the Department’s statistics on detention, and the more detailed information available through Senate estimates.